Angel Voice
by Gerald Tarrant
Summary: Four years have passed since the Protodevlin invasion. Fire Bomber is still loved by all residents of the Macross 7...except the band members themselves. What happens when a dream dies, and how can it live again?
1. Author's Note

_Macross 7 and all characters are property of Bandai, Big West, FiX, and Manga Entertainment.  
Please do not repost this fanfiction without permission.  
lordofmerentha@yahoo.com_

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**Author's Note**

_Angel Voice_ is an "alternate universe" retelling of the years after the Protodeviln War on the premise that the events of Dynamite 7 would happen 4 years after the war instead of 2 as in the canon series. In _Angel Voice_, I've tried to explore a different timeline in which the members of Fire Bomber have begun to go their separate ways. Think of _Angel Voice_ as a "bridge" story linking the Macross 7 TV series with an AU version of Dynamite 7, in which the characters are older, a bit wiser, and the Fire Bomber interludes in the OVA don't happen. You'll understand what I mean better when you read the story.

There was a rather long hiatus of the story in between Parts 4 and 5, so if the flow of the fic is disjointed, that's the reason. I did go back and revised much of what came before so I hope that won't happen. I wasn't quite sure where I was going with this thing when I first started it - I think I was just planning it to be an AU Fire Bomber story with a Basara and Mylene subplot but then it kind of ran away with itself.

These story notes will eventually go in the regular story note file after the fic is complete, but since it isn't, I wanted them to be here for reference. Enjoy the story.


	2. Part I

_Macross 7 and all characters are property of Bandai, Big West, FiX, and Manga Entertainment.  
Please do not repost this fanfiction without permission.  
lordofmerentha@yahoo.com_

* * *

**I. [Basara]**

  


_Give me the beat boys, and free my soul  
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll_

  
It was the pounding on the door that woke him, not the pounding in his head. He still woke with a start, even though after so long one would think he would get used to it. The pounding on the door, that was, not the throbbing headache. He tried to get out of bed and tangled himself in a stray sheet.  
"Itai!"  
"Basara! I know you're in there!"  
He made it down the loft ladder without mishap and stumbled to the door, which was by now vibrating on its hinges in pent-up anger.  
He jerked it open. "What?"  
Something stumbled past him and fell in a heap on the floor. There was an angry squawking.  
"Basara, you jerk!"  
"You knocked?" he said, stifling a yawn. "I don't have all day, you know."  
"Darn right you don't! It's two o' clock in the afternoon!"  
He blinked. Looked at the clock. "Oh."  
A frustrated sigh from the ground, and angry blue eyes glared up at him. "Really! I don't suppose you remembered we have a recording session today?"  
"It's at three," he said airily, kicking the door shut. Bits of dust scattered from the rafters, and he sneezed.  
The lump on the floor untangled itself from the dirty clothes that happened to be in the way of the door, shaking dirt out of bright pink hair. "And your apartment is a dump! Why can't you get a new place, like Ray? Even Veffidas bought a new apartment last month!"  
"I like it here," he said dryly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Since when did you decide that you were my mother, Mylene?"  
She glared. "Jerk."  
"Thanks," he returned, brushing past her and taking the rungs of the ladder two at a time. "You never did say what you wanted."  
"Eh? HELLO!" The ladder shook as she clambered after him. "We have a recording session!"  
"At three."  
"It takes forty-five minutes to get there!"  
"Well then, we have fifteen minutes."  
He almost smiled as he could feel her rage. Almost. It wasn't wise to smile when she was as angry as this. He turned, raising his hands in surrender.  
"All right. Look, I'll be ready in ten minutes. Ok?"  
The death glare in her eyes could bring down a Zentradi ship in flames.  
"Uh…five?"  
"I'll be waiting," she growled. "You always do this, Basara. One day I'm not going to be there to rescue you and we'll lose our deal."  
He shrugged. "So?"  
Mylene made an inarticulate noise of frustration and vaulted down the ladder, slamming the door behind her. The walls shook.  
He remembered the first time she had climbed that ladder, with two drinks in her hands, trying to balance and not quite making it. She had been so young then…four years ago. Had it really been four years?   
With a sigh he flopped down on the bed, blinking the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes. The throbbing in his head, behind his eyes, was still there, and his throat felt scratchy. He didn't know if he was up to singing today. Not for a recording session, anyway. If they had still been at war, if it was the heat of battle and the fire in his veins urging him on, not even illness or death could stop him from singing his heart out. He knew that.  
But it had been four years, and the war was long over.  
There was a poster on the far wall of the band, from a promo session done a few months after Planet Dance had been released. He was smiling - grinning, rather - out from the glossy paper as if he owned the universe. Ray was calm as always, with Veffidas holding her drumsticks crossed over her chest, as if tapping out a melody even while the photo was being shot. She probably had been. And Mylene was holding her bass with that infectious smile of hers. He could almost hear her childish laughter in his ears, Guavava peeking out of her curtain of pink hair.  
He sighed again and pushed himself up from the bed. Felt something beneath his toe and pulled it out. It was the Macross Entertainment magazine, with Fire Bomber on the cover. Fire Bomber was on the cover of everything nowadays. He supposed he should be happy. Or something. They all were happy, so he was.  
Flipping through the magazine idly, he caught the picture almost by accident, a miniature inset into a text box describing the band's old days during the war. Now he remembered shooting that picture. They were in almost exactly the same poses as they had been in the poster on his wall, except his guitar was newer, shinier, and Mylene's bass had lost the funny bunny-ear ornaments. Her smile was genuine, graceful, a woman's secret smile. He glanced up at the poster again and then down at the magazine. He hadn't even noticed…when had she grown up so much?  
His smile, on the other hand, simply looked tired. He looked old, he thought, as he flung the magazine lazily across the room. When had he gotten so old?  
Four years…it seemed like yesterday, and at the same time a million years.  
"Ba-sa-ra!"  
A horn squealed. He jumped.  
"We're leaaaving!"  
"Coming!" he yelled out the open window, hoping she hadn't seen him still in his sleeping clothes. She probably had.  
Shirt and pants took ten seconds to put on, shoes five seconds, the guitar another two seconds to grab, and sixteen seconds to run out of the apartment. He didn't bother to slick down his hair. The recording people didn't care. It wasn't as if it was going to be a live performance.  
"Mou!" she complained as he made it out to the van, not even breathing hard. He was proud of himself. "It's about time!"  
He didn't comment, pulling the guitar in after him. "Ready to go, Ray."  
"Konnichiwa," Ray said, starting up the engine. Behind him, Veffidas tapped out a hello on the window of the van.  
"They don't seem worried," he commented to the air behind him.  
She wrinkled her nose at him.  
Ray was a good driver, and they made it to the studio in thirty minutes. They could have hired a chauffeur and a fancy limousine long ago, if they had wanted, but Ray liked driving the old dusty van, and it was something of a relic from their old days. A remembrance. And it was less publicity, one less thing to worry about with the screaming fans and the snapping flashbulbs. He really hated flashbulbs. Just thinking about them made his head ache.  
Parking was light today at the studio, and the van scooted into a place in a cloud of dust and squealing tires. Of course. It was Saturday. He grabbed his guitar and hopped out the door, leaving it open for her.  
"See? Plenty of time, Mylene."  
She didn't answer, pulling her bass out of the back and pointedly ignoring him. He blinked. Her long hair, usually down for recording sessions, was pulled up in a bun to the back of her head, and she was wearing black slacks and a tight blue shirt.  
"What're you dressed like that for?"  
"None of your business," she snapped.  
"Fine," he said, with more sting in his voice than he had intended. "I didn't want to know anyway."  
"I have a date, if you must know. With Gamlin." She sounded defensive.  
He frowned. "I thought you two-"  
"He asked, and I said yes. It's not anything."  
"But-"  
"What would you know?" she said, turning eyes on him. "You've never been on a date."  
He glared at her. "Hey!"  
"You haven't, have you?"  
"Basara! Mylene!"  
"I'm going to ask about this later," he said, a low warning in his voice.  
"It's none of your business. Dad."  
Oh, she had nerve. He didn't know why he put up with her. The throbbing headache pounded and he could almost feel it breaking through his forehead with sharp claws, crawling through his brain. He shouldn't have stayed up late last night, song or no song. It wouldn't do any good to disappoint the band.  
He hated disappointing the band.  
He remembered when it was different, when he was in the band just because it was there. It was an outlet for his music and it gave him the freedom to express, the excuse he needed for his actions, an outlet for his frustrations and joys and just because he loved it. But now it had become a responsibility, an obligation he had to fulfill.  
Oh, there was still music, but it wasn't the same anymore. Not nearly the same. Now it was about producers and recordings and music videos and live performances and appearances and promotions. Now it was about money and fame and the spotlight.  
He'd give anything to have the old days back.  
"You look tired, Basara."  
He started, then realized it was Ray, who had dropped back from his place between the two women at the front. Mylene was taking large steps the size of Veffidas', and wondered if it was that she was really worried about being late or if she was just angry at him.  
"Didn't get much sleep," he murmured, rubbing his temples. "Not as young as I used to be, either, you know."  
A low chuckle. "I know. Believe me. It gets to you after a while. What were you doing?"  
"Writing a song," he said, almost hesitantly. He didn't know why he hesistated; usually he was the first to announce that he had written a song, handing out copies to each member of the band and insisting they practice right then, right now, to see if it sounded right. But not this one. "I didn't finish, either." It was odd, to think about it. He rarely ever spent more than two hours writing a song. But last night, the words just wouldn't fit the melody, and he didn't know why.  
There was a long silence from the other man, and when he spoke, it was very soft.  
"Maybe you need a break, Basara."  
He halted in his tracks. "What?"  
Ray stopped beside him, not facing him. "I said maybe you need a break, Basara."  
"What are you talking about?"  
"You know what I mean," Ray said quietly. "I've seen you these past few months, working yourself to the bone, not sleeping, not eating. You're burning yourself out, Basara."  
"If it's for the music," he said stubbornly, "it's all right."  
"Is it for the music?"  
He turned to answer, but Ray was turning the corner and he was all alone in the hallway.  
"I have too been on a date," he said to the wall.

  
_Is it for the music?_  
His hand slipped on the frets and the chord went sour. He saw the producer waving his arms, trying not to look angry. He understood. If he was the producer, he'd be frustrated too…but he wasn't. He was just Nekki Basara, guitarist and lead vocalist of the hottest band in the galaxy, and he couldn't even play a simple chord.  
"Fingers slipped," he said, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. "It won't happen again."  
_That's what you said three tries ago._  
He saw Ray looking pointedly at him out of the corner of his eye, but refused to meet the keyboardist's gaze. He could do it. He had always done it. Didn't he even manage to pull it off in those stupid recording sessions that Mylene had gotten them, all those years ago?  
_Yeah, but that was different._  
"Shut up," he growled.  
"Eh?"  
"Not you," he said tiredly to the girl who was standing by his elbow, peering up anxiously at him. "I was talking to myself."  
"Uh. Ok." She blinked at him, ignoring the producer who was standing in the doorway, looking cross. "You all right? I'm sorry I got mad at you. I know I said I'd stop that."  
He almost smiled. "That was a year ago."  
"It's never too late to keep old promises, right?"  
He did smile then. "If you say so. Let's try that one again."  
"All right," she said, stepping back to her microphone, but her eyes didn't leave him. The headache was making black spots in front of his eyes now, and he felt dizzy. He took a drink of water.  
"All right."  
Veffidas struck the opening drum riff again, for what seemed the thousandth time, and he strummed the opening chords. So far, so good.

_Omae ga kaze ni naru nara_

Ridiculous. He wasn't burning himself out. He had a strong career, he was living out the dream he'd always wanted. Right?

_Hateshinai sora ni naritai_

He was tired, but that could be taken care of. He'd just take a nap tonight after he got home from recording, and with Mylene gone on her date there would be no one to wake him up at odd times of the night begging for something or other. He had a good supply of food and drink to last him for the next week, if he chose to sleep through the week. Not that he would, but it was a nice thought.

_Hageshii ame oto ni tachi sukumu toki wa_

Yes, all around, he supposed life was good. It was what they told him, anyway.

_Guitar o kaki narashi_

His fingers were sweaty and he couldn't help it, but they slipped again, and he didn't even try to cover the mistake. He simply stopped.  
"Basara?"  
"I…" he said quietly. A cool hand reached up to his forehead.  
"I think you have a fever, Basara. You feel rather warm."  
"If Nekki-san has a fever, it would be good for him to go home and rest." The producer's voice came through the open window. "We can record this another time."  
"Concerned about my health, are you?" he said through gritted teeth.  
"Basar-"  
"I'll go," he said, unslinging the guitar and setting it on the stand, bending down to open the case. "Don't push it. You don't have to yell."  
"I wasn't-"  
He cut her off with a gesture, fitting the guitar smoothly into the case and closing it with a snap. "Ray, if you could drive…"  
"Sure."  
"Sorry, minna."  
Mylene didn't say anything, which was surprising. She always had something to say, and considering that he was quitting a recording session, usually plenty of somethings. But she simply watched him. The look on her face was unreadable.  
Well, considering he had actually apologized for once, maybe it was right for her to be speechless. He was a lot more articulate than he had been four years ago, but he still rarely apologized. It was just something he didn't do.  
But he felt the band needed an apology for him quitting on them now. It was a responsibility, and he prided himself on being a responsible man.  
Ray didn't say anything as he heaved himself onto the front seat, setting the guitar gently in the back. The engine sputtered, then started, and the van was puttering smoothly onto the highway.  
"What song was it?"  
He glanced at his companion. "What?"  
"That song that you were writing last night, that kept you up. What was it?"  
He shrugged vaguely. "Oh, just some song."  
"That's not like you."  
"What's not?"  
"Usually you can't wait to tell us about a new song. Or a new idea. Or something."  
"So you think you can second-guess me?" he snapped.  
"No," Ray said simply. "I'm just worried about you."  
"Forget it. I'm fine."  
A silence. "If you say so."  
The rest of the trip passed in strained silence, and Ray didn't say anything when they arrived in front of the old apartment complex and he got out of the van a bit unsteadily, grabbing the guitar and fumbling in his pocket for his keys. He heard the van drive off and smelled the exhaust. They really needed to take the thing in for repairs.  
The apartment was dark and smelled of dust and old clothes, and he was almost too tired to climb the ladder up to his bed. But somehow he made it, slinging the guitar into a corner and sitting down on the bed, staring at nothing. The old Fire Bomber poster on the war was glossy in the fading light, and with a start he looked out the window. Was it getting dark already? He hadn't realized they had been in the studio that long.  
His teeth and guitar and Mylene's bass were white, and the rest of the poster was a matte smear of blending dark colors, all running together in his blurry vision. He stood up a bit uncertainly, hand brushing the music stand by the bed, and despite his subconscious warning, he turned to look at it.  
The white piece of paper was still there, the penciled in chords and words visible. He had only written a few lines. The paper was covered with smudges and scratch-outs. He could still hear the evasive melody and the words in his head, but for some reason even thinking of writing them down made them swirl and vanish.

_Mimi o sumaseba kasuka ni kikoeru darou  
Hora ano koe  
Kotoba nan ka ja tsutae rarenai nani ka  
Itsumo kanjiru are wa tenshi no koe_

Melody wa kieru yami ni shimi komu you ni  
Echo nokoshite  
Shizuka ni oriteku deep blue no aurora ni  
Ore mo uta-

There the scrawly handwriting ended in a series of odd-looking swirls which probably meant he had stumbled off to bed at that point. A lot of good that had done him.  
He let the paper flutter to the floor, stepping over it, intending to collapse on the bed. A flash of light as the fading sunlight hit the poster, and a strange sense of nausea swept over him.  
Walking over, he gazed at his photo guitar and her paper smile for a moment longer, then ripped the poster from the wall and threw it in the trash.

  



	3. Part II

_Macross 7 and all characters are property of Bandai, Big West, FiX, and Manga Entertainment.  
Please do not repost this fanfiction without permission.  
lordofmerentha@yahoo.com_

* * *

**II. [Mylene]**

  


_I said I know it's only rock and roll  
But I like it._

  
"How did the recording go?"  
She was surprised for a moment, then smiled at Gamlin as she took another sip of her water. He rarely ever asked about the band, and even more rarely about what they were doing at the moment. She understood; after all, he had his own commitments to worry about. He had been promoted to Commander a month before and was busy with his new office and squadron and the paperwork and responsibility that came with it. And he'd always had sort of a grudge against the band.  
It was almost funny, really, to imagine a man jealous of a rock band.  
"Mylene?"  
"Not too well," she said at last. "Basara got sick and had to go home."  
"I see." The tone in his voice was carefully neutral, but she knew him well enough to hear the conflicting emotions. Gamlin had always been jealous of Basara, in one way or another, even after the war ended. At the same time, he really liked the guitarist.  
Men. She couldn't understand them.  
"He's probably sleeping right now…I'll go visit him after we eat and see if he's ok."  
"All right," he said, and she winced mentally. She should have known better than to mention Basara's name in the middle of a date.  
"I'm sorry, Gamlin."  
He smiled at her. "No, it's all right. I understand you are concerned about him. If you do drop by, tell him I said hello."  
She smiled back. He was so sweet. "I'll do that."  
They sat in silence for a while, watching the stars and waiting for their food to arrive. The sky was bright tonight outside the canopy and there were no clouds. She hoped they didn't decide to turn on the rain tonight…it was so lovely and warm.  
"Ne…Mylene."  
"Yes?"  
"How-" Gamlin's eyes went to the tablecloth and he toyed with the embroidery on the table napkin. "How do you feel about me, now?"  
She frowned at him, though she knew exactly what he was leading towards. "What do you mean?"  
"You know how I felt about…about you, during the war." This was obviously hard for him, and for a moment she pitied him. She'd heard stories of men who were articulate at expressing their feelings, but she had yet to meet one. "I was wondering…since we hadn't seen each other in a while…maybe…maybe you would-"  
"Gamlin."  
He stopped. She paused to collect her thoughts.  
"You know I consider you a friend. A very good friend. Right?"  
He nodded, almost mechanically. "Yes."  
"I know since the war ended we've been busy…you with your job and me with Fire Bomber and we haven't really had time to see each other. It's-" she paused. "It's been hard, for both of us."  
He nodded again.  
"I'd like to continue seeing you like this…I enjoy our time together. But I don't think I'm ready for a relationship at this minute." She forced him to meet her eyes. "I'm only eighteen years old…I'm not quite sure what I want right now, but there are many things I'd like to try."  
"I understand," he said softly.  
"But I'd like us to continue to…be together. For now. Don't discount any possibilities." She grinned. "You know?"  
To her surprise, he grinned back at her, catching her hand across the table. His hand was large and warm, the hand of a pilot. For a moment the thought flashed unbidden in her mind, if Basara's hand was warm and large, like Gamlin's.  
_What are you thinking, Mylene?_  
She'd always had sort of a crush on Basara, but it was a child's crush, she'd thought, that she would grow out of in time. And with the best pilot on Macross 7 chasing after her, she didn't have to go for that no-good, arrogant, guitar-playing nuisance anyway. She had Gamlin…that was enough, right?  
She'd never felt the same way about Gamlin as she ever had about Basara, but that was understood. She had known Basara for longer and deeper than she had known Gamlin. They were in a band together, for heaven's sake…they might not be the best of friends, but they got along well enough with the occasional argument or two. Or three. Gamlin had his own life, his own friends. She was just someone he went out with, with whom he put on a polished mask, as she did, speaking politely and hiding true emotions, playing the part of people they both were not.  
She wanted to know Gamlin. He was a man with many deep, hidden layers, but at the same time he was still young and naïve, and his loyalty to her was endearing. She would hate it if she had to hurt him.  
Basara on the other hand…she didn't think the man knew the meaning of love or hate or hurt. All he knew was his music. When she was a part of his music, he noticed her. When she put her bass away, she was a stranger, a girl he didn't have time for.  
She'd bet he had never had a date, like she'd said, but at the same time she didn't think he really cared. His music was his first love.  
She sighed.  
"Is something wrong, Mylene?"  
She blinked. Gamlin was looking at her with concern. She blushed. "Uh…no! Just thinking, that's all. Remembering."  
He nodded solemnly. "Ah. I do that sometimes."  
She smiled at him and he smiled uncertainly back. "I'm glad you're here with me, Gamlin. After everything that's happened."  
He looked embarrassed. "Me-me too."  
The food arrived just then and she decided to let it rest for now. She hadn't realized how hungry she was. After Basara had left with Ray, she had packed up her bass and sat swinging her legs over the side of the stage, staring at the recording studio which had become so familiar. It had been four years…where had the time gone?  
If she didn't look deeper she could pretend it was the same, with Basara being his usual loud self and refusing the gig, she trying to convince him to come around, screaming in his face, Ray standing looking amused, and Veffidas banging some rhythm or other on the drums in the background.  
But somewhere along the way she had grown up.  
It was different now. The arguments continued, but they were tired ones, old rehashing of the same few lines. He didn't even bother to answer her anymore when she demanded an answer, and she found herself asking the same rhetorical questions to the empty air. He still composed songs like mad, but somewhere, somehow, the fire had gone out of them. His new songs lacked…something. She didn't know what that something was, only that it wasn't there. She had confronted him about it a few weeks ago, the same tired argument.  
_You don't care_, she accused him. _You don't care about the band, the music anymore._  
_So what?_ He had returned, not even denying her accusation. _We're successful. That's all you wanted, right?_  
There was a note of contempt in his voice.  
She had wanted them to be successful, but with success came an awful feeling of emptiness, a void. Ray was always away now, having decided to try producing as well as playing, and bands clamored for his attention. Veffidas was as silent as ever. Basara…  
Basara had grown older, distant. She missed their old arguments. She missed the old Basara. The new Basara was a successful rock guitarist who toured solo more often than with the band, writing songs for other popular singers who desire to emulate him, appearing on shows and gracefully answering questions. She remembered the days of the war, when he'd brush aside reporters to race to his Valkyrie, to sing away the enemy with the passion of his music.  
The passion wasn't there anymore.  
She had grown up too, she supposed. It wasn't so much of a change in physical appearance as a change in the way she acted, the way she thought. She was quieter now, respectful, giving others the right to speak before she did. She had studied her mother's speeches and public appearances on television, trying to learn how to be more tactful, and apparently it had worked. Even Michael had remarked on what an intelligent young woman she had grown into, the other day.  
She had made an effort to understand the people around her, and the only one she still couldn't understand was Basara.  
She'd tried. She'd tried to understand what his music meant to him, and she thought she had, at one point and time. When the beat pulsed through her veins and their voices soared into the sky in perfect harmony, she had felt so alive, so whole. As a part of Sound Force, she had tried her best to live the music as Basara lived the music, tried to feel the music through her as he did. Ray had told her that she and Basara made a great stage pair, and even Basara had reluctantly agreed. If she worked just a little harder, she had thought. Just a little harder, maybe he would stop seeing her as the child he still thought she was, even after all these years, and look upon her as a fellow musician. Or if not that, then as a friend.  
Then he had changed, and she was left floundering in the dark once again.  
Gamlin had picked her up at the studio and commented on her unusual silence. She'd told him she was just tired from practicing, and he had nodded sagely, as if he understood. But he couldn't understand. Only Basara could understand, and Basara didn't want to.  
Basara didn't understand her, as she didn't understand him. She believed the music was just as important to her as it was to him, but he didn't seem to think so. It wasn't fair. Music was for everyone, not just for one special guitar player with the ego the size of the colony ship. Which was what Nekki Basara still was, morose and brooding or not.  
"Mylene? You all right?"  
She realized she was picking at her vegetables. "Oh! I'm-I'm fine." She gave Gamlin what she hoped was a cheerful smile. "Not too hungry is all. I'm worried about Basara."  
The look flashed across his face again. Yes, she knew he was jealous of Basara. Yes, she knew she didn't help the situation by mentioning Basara's name perhaps more often than was necessary. But she wasn't interested in Gamlin the way he was interested in her, as exciting as the prospect seemed, and using Basara as a shield was the only way she could remind him of that.  
Basara deserved it after all, for being such a jerk.  
"Mylene."  
"Eh?"  
"Should we go?"  
She gestured to her half-finished plate helplessly. "But we-"  
"You're worried about Basara," Gamlin said softly. "Why don't I drop you off at his apartment? It will make you feel better."  
"Oh!" she breathed. "Oh, no! You-"  
"I want you to be happy," he said. "We can make up the date another time."  
_To be happy…_  
For a moment she felt guilty for using him like this, but it was the only thing she knew how to do with him, and he didn't mind.  
"Thank you," she said softly.

  
The apartment was dark, and the door was not locked, as usual. She opened it softly, stepping inside, hoping she wouldn't trip on anything. Dirty clothes were dark shadows on the floor. Basara usually snored, but she couldn't hear a sound from the loft. Either he was too sick to snore or he was not asleep.  
If he wasn't asleep she would physically drag him into bed and make sure he stayed there. He was going to kill himself if he kept driving himself like this.  
She reached the top of the ladder without mishap and was gratified to see a dark head barely peeking out of rumpled covers. He was breathing shallowly, and when she put a hand to his forehead, it was burning.  
Scurrying down the ladder, she wet a washcloth. When she returned, he had changed positions, one arm flung out of the blankets across his bare chest. She placed the washcloth on his forehead, her hand lingering just a moment. One dark bang fell across his eyes and she brushed it away involuntarily, then snatched her fingers away as if his fever had burned her.  
What was she thinking? It was Basara…and no one would catch her showing that kind of sympathy towards him, of all people.  
It was a childish crush, and she was not a child anymore.  
She should go.  
Turning, she saw that the far wall looked oddly empty, and there was a strange crumpled shape in the trash can. She walked over, curious. Pulled the large sheet of paper from the tiny trash can and held it up to the moonlight.  
It was their poster…their first promo poster.  
He had thrown it away.  
For a moment, all she felt was an empty shock, and then a hot wave of betrayal swept over her. She gripped the poster tightly. It was torn at the top, probably when he had ripped it from the wall.  
_Is this what the band means to you, Basara? Is this what we are now? Trash?_  
A hot tear slid from one eye, down her cheek, running down to the corner of her mouth. She could taste the salt on her tongue.  
She loved the band. She thought Basara loved the band, but all he really cared about was himself. That was what had been happening, and she had been too naïve to even notice. When he was changing…he had always been selfish, but selfish in a thoroughly innocent, giving sort of way. But now…  
She dropped the poster in the trash, not bearing to touch it anymore, wiping the tear from her cheek. Glanced back at the fitfully sleeping man on the rumpled bed. Her heart ached. For him, for what he and they had all become.  
When had it gone wrong? The dream…power to the dream, Basara had said. Power to the music. The mystery and the universe. The music was all of those, and more.  
At least it had been.  
There was a crumpled white piece of paper on the floor by the music stand, and she guessed it had been the song he had been working on last night. Against her own better judgment, she picked it up, unfolded it by the light coming through the partially open window.

_Mimi o sumaseba kasuka ni kikoeru darou  
Hora ano koe  
Kotoba nan ka ja tsutae rarenai nani ka  
Itsumo kanjiru are wa tenshi no koe_

Melody wa kieru yami ni shimi komu you ni  
Echo nokoshite  
Shizuka ni oriteku deep blue no aurora ni  
Ore mo uta-

There were chords scrawled on the top, almost halfheartedly, as if he didn't really feel like writing them all down. She hummed the melody absentmindedly in her head. Some chord changes were missing, and some simply sounded strange. She might not have perfect pitch like he did, but her pitch was good enough.  
Again, like all the songs he wrote now, there was something missing.  
The messy hiragana and kanji faded into messy scribbles at the end of the last written line. The paper was torn there too, as if it had been stabbed with a pencil. In frustration, maybe.  
Something missing…  
Basara's acoustic guitar was lying by the bed in an open case, as if he had forgotten to close it before he had stumbled into bed this morning. She lifted it carefully, resting it on her lap, strumming softly. He stirred on the bed but did not wake.  
Plucked the first chord.

_Mimi o sumaseba kasuka ni kikoeru darou_

It was not a bad melody. It sounded much nicer played.

_Hora ano koe  
Kotoba nan ka ja tsutae rarenai nani ka  
Itsumo kanjiru are wa tenshi no koe_

Angel's voice. That was a nice title for the song, if he ever finished it. For some reason, she didn't think he would.  
She didn't feel angry anymore, just tired. Very, very tired. She supposed that was what people felt like when their dreams disappeared into dust before their eyes.  
Or maybe the dream had disappeared long ago, and she just hadn't wanted to believe it.

_Melody wa kieru yami ni shimi komu you ni  
Echo nokoshite_

He turned on the bed again, and she stopped strumming for a second, watching him. He swallowed. The washcloth stayed on his forehead as he thrashed between the sheets, then quieted again. She waited until she was sure he was asleep before continuing.

_Shizuka ni oriteku deep blue no aurora ni  
Ore mo uta-_

She stopped.  
Hmm.  
There was a pencil on the music stand and she picked it up, penciling in the rest of the line, knowing him well enough to emulate his speaking patterns.

_Ore mo utau ze_

She kept strumming, trying out words in her head, discarding them, picking new ones, imagining Basara singing them and trying to match the sound of the words to the imaginary sound of his voice. Closing her eyes, she sang softly.

_Shinjite ita mono ga aru  
Baka da to iwareta keredo_

She didn't even notice when she began crying again, just that the tears were dripping down her chin and onto the wood and the strings, making odd chords along with the ones that were being released into the still air.

_Kawara nakatta  
Ano hi no yume  
Angel voice-_

She stopped.  
The words had run out, and she opened her eyes. Basara was still asleep, or at least if he was not, he pretended very well.  
There was something there, still. She had felt it in the words of the song. He had to finish this song, even if he didn't care about the music, the band anymore. He-  
She knew he wouldn't finish it. It would be just another discarded melody, another distant dream.  
Standing, she placed the guitar softly back in its case and shut it, then stood with the paper in her hand, looking down at him. He looked so peaceful, sleeping. And older. He looked old. When had he become so old?  
"Gomen," she said to unhearing ears, and folded the sheet of paper, stuffing it into her pocket and clambering quickly down the ladder, already hearing more words in her head, running through her mind like fire.

_Angel voice mitsuketa no sa  
Chiheisen no mukou ni…_

  



	4. Part III

_Macross 7 and all characters are property of Bandai, Big West, FiX, and Manga Entertainment.  
Please do not repost this fanfiction without permission.  
lordofmerentha@yahoo.com_

* * *

**III. [Basara]**

  


_I love rock 'n roll  
So put another dime in the jukebox, baby_

  
He had half-heard a familiar melody running through his mind in his dreams, and when he opened his eyes he expected it to be playing somewhere near his ear, from a radio or something. But there was only sunlight streaming through the window and it was three in the afternoon.  
For a moment, he panicked, thinking he had missed a gig, or a rehearsal, or a performance or a recording session. That Mylene had really gone through with her threat and had just not bothered to get him out of bed, and people were counting on him when he wasn't there.  
But no, today was Sunday, and there had been a recording session yesterday, and he had been sick.  
The memories came rushing back and he flopped back down on the bed. It was bright outside. Someone had opened his blinds for him and there was a pitcher of water sitting on the bedside table.  
He frowned.  
The first thing that hit him when he stood up was a wave of dizziness that seemed to pass through his head and out his ears, whirling him around on a floor that had suddenly become unstable. When it passed, he was leaning against the wall, gasping. The second thing that hit him was the blank spot where his hand was touching, where there was supposed to be…something. A poster?  
A promo poster. It wasn't there anymore.  
He had faint memories of ripping it from the wall and throwing it away, but there was nothing in the trash can. Maybe it had been a dream, and it had blown out the window in the middle of the night or something.  
What was a poster, anyway? Another worthless momento of the past. Something he didn't need, to remind him of better days.  
There was a knock on the door.  
"It's open," he called, this throat scratchy. He coughed. Took another look at the cold pitcher of water and poured himself half a glass with an unsteady hand as the door opened and the bulky figure of Ray Lovelock peered up at him from below.  
"Feeling better?"  
He winced. "Not particularly. I can stand, which is an improvement, I suppose."  
Ray chuckled. "Quite. I'm glad you're feeling more like yourself."  
"What's that supposed to mean?" He growled darkly, downing the glass of water. "You aren't going to give me crap for walking out in the middle of a recording session, are you?"  
Ray eyed him thoughtfully. "No…I think Mylene can manage that better than I."  
"Great." He set the glass down on the table. "What did you come for? Don't tell me you stopped by this dump of an apartment to pay me a get-well visit."  
This time Ray laughed out loud. "You never do change, do you, Basara?"  
He said nothing.  
"Actually, I wanted to ask you about that song you were writing. The one you didn't finish. We need a new song to play at concerts, and I think yours might be the one."  
"No," he said flatly.  
Ray frowned. "Why not?"  
"I don't like it."  
"It's worth a-"  
"I don't like it. I'm not keeping it."  
"Can't you just let me see it?" Ray sounded a little hurt, if that was possible. He hadn't thought it was possible for the big man to sound like that. He sighed.  
"Fine. But we're not using it."  
"If you say so," Ray returned, though he didn't believe for one second that the smooth tone held a bit of sincerity. He hobbled over to his music stand and reached for the piece of crumpled paper-  
-that wasn't there. He frowned. That was odd.  
"It's not here," he called down below. "You ran out of luck this time, Ray."  
"What do you mean, it's not there?"  
"I left it here…" he lifted up the composition books on the floor, checked under the bed. "…left it here that night, on the stand. But it's not here now."  
Ray sounded suspicious. "If you're trying to get out of-"  
"Seriously!" He held up his hands, looking down at the keyboardist. "Would I lie about something like this?"  
"I wouldn't put it past you."  
"Oi!"  
Ray shrugged. "Well. That's too bad. I suppose I could get Mylene to go write us a song, if you can't find yours."  
"That's fine. I told you, I wouldn't have let you use it anyway."  
"See you later, Basara."  
"Ja," he mumbled as the door shut behind Ray, and he sat down hard on the floor, trying to figure out what exactly had happened the past forty-eight hours or so, which were all blurring in his mind. He remembered sleeping…music…waking.  
Mylene?  
She had come in, he was sure of it. The washcloth which he had found on his forehead in the middle of the night had not dropped from the ceiling of its own accord. He supposed it was sweet of her to check up on him like that. Wasn't it what she always said? So-and-so was so sweet to do this or that.  
He'd shrug and pluck some more chords and drown out her rambling with the music inside his mind.  
But that was then.  
Now she didn't ramble anymore, and he couldn't seem to find the chords. She had grown up, and he had simply grown…jaded. He thought that was the word.  
Yes, that was the word. His music was missing and he couldn't even bring himself to care much. Inside there was a small knot of disappointment that four hours of work had gone down the drain like that, but the song would never have amounted to much anyway, and he was sick of writing for an audience that didn't understand the music, sick of writing for a group of people who had become a liability instead of the musicians he had once seen them as, sick of writing for himself when he wasn't even sure what he was writing for anymore.  
Before, when he didn't know why he was singing, he'd leave. He'd leave and go far away where the duties of City 7 and Sound Force didn't weigh him down, with one goal in mind. He'd leave until he had found what he was looking for, and then he would return.  
Becoming responsible had changed all that. He couldn't leave the band. And he didn't really want to. He was getting too old to go traipsing around the galaxy in search of an elusive dream that kept hovering just out of his grasp. And when he would capture it, it somehow would manage to escape, to lure him further and further away.  
It wasn't worth chasing anymore.  
Sighing, he got up, waited until the wave of dizziness had passed, and then set about climbing down the ladder. It took him more effort than he would have liked, but he made it down without hurting any major organs. Stood there for a moment and surveyed the mess that he called an apartment.  
"I thought about cleaning it for you, but I thought I'd let you take responsibility for your own mess."  
"Hello, Mylene," he said.  
"Hello, Basara. Feeling better?"  
"You didn't have to come in last night, you know," he said, ignoring her question.  
"Of course I did," Mylene returned, stepping into the room, leaving the door open. "I couldn't let a fellow band member lie sick by himself."  
"That's all it was, huh."  
A confused look. He shook his head. "Never mind. Forget it."  
"What do you mean?"  
"Nothing. Have you seen my music?"  
She shook her head. "You mean the song you were writing the other night? It was on the music stand when I came up last night."  
"It's not there anymore."  
"Did you look under the bed? Remember you lost Light the Light and Power to the Dream under there a couple of times."  
"Yes, I looked under the bed," he said in exasperation. He didn't even know why he was exasperated; she was doing her best to help. But he did not feel like visitors right now, and she was in the way.  
"When are you going to do your laundry?" Mylene said.  
"I'll do it when I feel like it," he said, resisting the urge to make a nasty remark. That wasn't like him. It must be the fever talking. He put a hand to his forehead. Yes, definitely the fever talking.  
"I knew you would say that."  
He made it up the ladder without mishap, not answering her, sitting down on the floor and breathing hard. What a time to be sick.  
His guitar case was closed. Odd. He didn't remember closing it…his memory might be fuzzy, but he was still a stickler for the details that mattered, and he never closed his guitar case when he had been composing at night. It was just one of those things he never did.  
"Oi, Mylene! Have you been messing around with my stuff?"  
"Stuff? What stuff?" Her voice was muffled, and when he looked down he saw she was stuffing dirty clothes into a basket.  
"What the heck do you think you're doing?"  
"I'm washing your clothes," she retorted, with a hint of superiority. "What else does it look like?"  
"I can wash my own clothes!"  
"No you can't."  
"You-" She was already out the door, and he dropped his threatening fist with a sigh, feeling drained. He might as well just not speak to her. She would do what she liked, whether he told her or not, and he knew that already. Why did he try? He wasn't sure.  
He opened the guitar case and drew the instrument out, positioning it across his lap. Strummed a chord, whatever felt right. The opening melody, like sunlight across the clouds.

_Omae ga kaze ni naru nara  
Hateshinai sora ni naritai_

He wondered what he was missing. What had been in those songs so long ago, what Mylene and the people of Macross 7 and the Protodeviln had believed in that he didn't have anymore.

_Hageshii ameoto ni tachisukumu toki wa  
Guitar wo kaki narashi kokoro wo shizume you_

He heard the door open but didn't stop. The smell drifting up smelled like laundry detergent and the smell from the window smelled like a bright spring day.  
He remembered spring from when he was a little boy, when they had still lived on the planet and the seasons were real, with sun and birds and endless days of blue.

_Come on people  
Kanjite hoshii  
Ima sugu wakaranakute ii kara_

He coughed again, wanting to stop for water, but stopping in the middle of this song was almost sacrilege. He wasn't going to die…he could finish.

_Come on people  
Inochi no kagiri  
Omae wo mamoritsuzukeru  
My soul for you_

He strummed a bridge, feeling too tired to sing, then let his fingers drop, one by one, until the song faded away into silence. He didn't feel like singing anymore. He was tired.  
"That was good," said the voice from downstairs.  
Setting the guitar back in its case, he closed the lid but did not snap it shut. "I'm glad you think so."  
"I do," she said. Pink hair and blue eyes appeared at the top of the ladder. "Ne."  
"Nani?" he said, not really listening.  
"Why do you write love songs, Basara?"  
Out of everything she could have asked, he had not been expecting that.  
"Say again?"  
"You heard me," she said stubbornly. Her hair was done up in a ponytail and she was wearing a scarf on her head, like a maid. Well, she had been doing his laundry after all. "Why do you write love songs?"  
He shrugged. "I don't know."  
"That's not an answer!"  
"What do you want me to say?" he said tiredly.  
"I…I don't know. Is there a girl you love that you're writing these to? Was there one who it didn't work out with? Or something. Everyone writes songs about things they know, right?"  
"Well, what do you write songs about?" Turning the tables on her. "You write love songs too."  
"That's not fair!"  
He shrugged. "Life's not fair, Mylene. You should know that by now."  
They sat in silence for a while, feeling the wind on their backs from the open window.  
"Ne, Basara."  
"Nani?"  
"Do we have a name for our next album yet?"  
"No."  
"Are you thinking of some?"  
"No."  
She groaned. "You're impossible!"  
"Yes."  
"What's wrong, Basara?"  
He blinked at her.  
"I don't want to intrude on whatever problems you're having…and I know we've never been the best of friends…but you're not yourself lately." She looked pleadingly at him. "Can't you tell me what's going on?"  
"There's nothing going on," he said, trying to sound nonchalant. "Don't worry about me."  
"I-" she stopped. "If you say so."  
"You should probably go."  
"Yeah." She got up. "Your laundry's in the washer."  
"Thanks," he said simply, not watching her leave. She didn't close the door. She didn't say goodbye.  
_Why do you write love songs, Basara?_  
He'd never thought about it.  
It was just something everyone did. Love was a common topic of songs these days, and he thought he understood why. Love was the most powerful emotion of all, and powerful emotions moved the human soul.  
He'd known what love was, back when he had written those songs about love and dancing and heartbeats. Love was his music, what he lived for. Others might write songs about men and women and lost sweethearts but his songs were about love for the sake of love, pouring out emotion through his songs.  
Maybe that was what was missing. He had grown up, and love suddenly wasn't so innocent anymore.  
My soul for you. What rubbish.  
Unwillingly, his hand strayed to the case of his guitar but he didn't pull it out, just gazed at the doorway through which Mylene had left, wondering what had possessed her to ask something like that.  
There had been something different about her lately, that he had been trying to pin down but hadn't quite figured out. She seemed…more alone?  
Guvava. She didn't carry him around anymore.  
He hadn't even noticed when she'd stopped.  
I did it all for Guvava, he'd say, when he'd rescue her time after time as she was doing something stupid. Not that he minded, but for some reason he had a hard time telling her that he didn't want to see her hurt. Parental instincts perhaps, though he was a little young for that. He wondered what he would cast the blame for his actions on now that the creature was gone.  
Drumming his fingers on the case, he began to sing softly. It was a disease, the music, throbbing in his blood, never leaving him in peace. He hated it.

_Come on people shinjite hoshii  
Itsumademo kawaranai ore wo  
Come on people taiyou no you ni  
Omae wo kagayakaseru  
My soul for you_

  
to part 2 | to part 4


	5. Part IV

_Macross 7 and all characters are property of Bandai, Big West, FiX, and Manga Entertainment.  
Please do not repost this fanfiction without permission.  
lordofmerentha@yahoo.com_

* * *

**IV. [Mylene]**

  


_God save the rock 'n roll one for all  
God save the rock 'n roll all for one_

  
She'd always hated doing laundry, but there was something truly pathetic about the dirty mountains of clothing and sheets lying about on the floor, as if a massacre of cloth had taken place. She wondered how Basara had taken care of himself before the band.  
Most of the windows of the house were dark when she arrived back home, pulling the convertible in and parking it in the circle drive. She didn't mind living by herself; she had done it since she had joined the band, and it was pleasant. But she wouldn't mind having someone to talk to, besides Guvava. Talking to a pet didn't cure loneliness, and she hated talking on the phone.  
She needed a real, live person to talk to.  
Gamlin was a good listener, but she hated wasting his time, although he swore over and over that it wasn't a waste of time when he was spending time with her. Poor guy. He was swamped with overwork and rookie pilots and superior officers clamoring at him from all sides, and the less he was stuck with her rambling, the better.  
He really was in love with her. That was the sad part. Sweet, but sad, because even during the height of their romantic fling during the Protodeviln war, she had never really known what she wanted. She had been fourteen, and he hardly that much older, two children thrown into the midst of something they didn't understand. Basara had been a child too, now that she thought about it, but in her mind he had always been a child.  
Perhaps he was finally growing up, and that was what was happening.  
Sighing, she flicked on the light in her bedroom, pushing up the window to let the cool evening breeze in. A squeaking noise to the left caught her attention, and she froze before she realized it was just Guvava, curled up in a ball on the couch and emitting what she supposed passed for snores among animals of his kind.  
Reaching over, she stroked his fur with her fingers lightly, once, twice, and the squeaking rose in pitch, then dropped as she moved away, sat down at her desk and clicked on the desk lamp.  
Letters. One, two, six. University letters, from universities all over the Cities and various planets. Gamlin would stare wide-eyed at her, if he saw these, ask her what she was thinking. Basara would have a fit, then sneer and say she'd never get into any university. She was too dumb.  
Which was precisely why she hadn't told either of them what she wanted to do with her life.  
Ray knew. She had talked it over with him several months before, after a band practice in which she and Basara had another of their minor spats over some chord or other, Basara had left in a huff, and Veffidas had gone on some errands. Ray was perceptive, she knew that, but she never knew exactly how perceptive he really was.  
"So what's going on, Mylene?" he'd said, dropping down beside her, keyboard in his lap. She'd sighed.  
"Nothing."  
"How are those admissions letters going?"  
Her jaw had dropped as she stared at him speechless for a moment. "How-how did you know?"  
He had smiled his secret smile and began buffing his keyboard. "I have my connections."  
"You've been talking to my father again, haven't you?"  
"Perhaps."  
She sighed, ready to give him a sharp retort, then wondered what the point of that was. He wasn't Basara, and he wouldn't laugh at her. "Well…you know. What do you think?"  
"About you trying to get into university? I think it's a great chance for a girl like you. You're smart, Mylene."  
That had brought a faint blush to her cheeks. "Not really. I didn't really go to high school. I was too busy being in a band."  
"I know. Your parents home-schooled you, right?  
She shrugged. "You can call it that. I had tutors, but they always left after a couple of weeks. I was never home enough to get any kind of regular schooling…most classes I took by correspondence."  
"How were your grades?"  
She shrugged again. "Decent. Why do you want to know?"  
"It takes a lot more than grades to get into college. Admissions boards want well-rounded students, and you're certainly well-rounded."  
"That's the problem," she said sourly. "I...I just…I don't want to get into some university just because I'm Max and Milia Jenius' daughter. I want to get in because of what I've done, not because they're famous and the university wants to make a name for itself."  
"That'll be hard to do," he said softly. "Most universities do want to make a name for themselves."  
"Yeah." Her shoulders slumped, defeated. "That's what I thought. I don't know if I want to do this anymore."  
"Yes you do."  
She narrowed her eyes at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"  
"I know you, Mylene. Pretty well, I'd like to think. When you make up your mind to do something, you do it with all your heart. You're like Basara."  
She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. "You're both passionate, idealistic people. You give yourselves to something so totally that you don't care if it hurts you. Am I making sense?"  
Ray, quiet, stoic, laidback Ray, lecturing her on her own personality. But strangely, she didn't mind. "Yeah. I guess."  
"I get frustrated with you two sometimes because you are so much alike. You both believe you're right, and you won't see anyone else's point of view. At least back in the beginning. You two are visionaries. You have dreams. You want to leave legacies behind, for others to follow.  
"Yeah," she said again. "I guess."  
"Basara-" he stopped. "She knew what he was going to say."  
"You've noticed it too?"  
"I don't know what happened," he said quietly. "All of a sudden…the passion isn't there anymore." He looked at her suddenly, eyes intense. "Basara let his dream, his vision, slip away. I don't want that to happen to you, Mylene."  
She tried to laugh. "I don't know if going to university is much of a dream, Ray. Not much of a legacy to leave behind, is it?"  
He set his keyboard down gently, coming to sit beside her. "That's just it, Mylene. You've made your legacy. You were a vital part of Sound Force during the war. You've created timeless music that people will be talking about for generations to come. If this could go on forever, believe me, I would never want it to end. But you know what, Mylene? Everything comes to an end someday, and you've got to move on."  
In his eyes she could see the shadow of the life he left behind; Akiko and Stephen and the pilot's life he had loved so much. "I left one way of life to come to the next, he said quietly. At first I wasn't sure if I could do it, but I had a vision, and I let that vision carry me. That vision was Basara."  
"Basara?"  
"Basara had a vision, too," Ray said, looking at his big hands. "But he's headstrong and he's proud and he's stubborn. I'd hoped he would have grown up a little more by now, but he's too stubborn to see his own faults."  
"You're telling me!" she cut in, a little annoyed.  
Ray smiled sadly. "Basara fulfilled his dream a long time ago, but he doesn't know how to let it go. He wants it to go on, but he knows it's over. And he can't accept that."  
"Ray…what was Basara's dream?"  
He glanced at her, surprised. "You still don't know?"  
"I was young," she replied. "I didn't understand him. I still don't."  
"Basara's dream…"Ray's voice became muted, distant. "How should I put this?"  
She laid one hand on his thick, muscular shoulder, waiting.  
"Basara's dream - his vision - was love."  
She blinked. That was not at all what she had been expecting. "Eh?"  
"Not just romantic love," Ray said. "That's actually the one kind of love I think that he doesn't understand. His love…he's a passionate man, like I said earlier. He loves too fiercely and then he gets hurt."  
"Basara?" She could hear the incredulity in her own voice. "I don't think he knows what the word 'hurt' means!"  
"He knows. Why do you think he writes the kinds of songs he does? Basara had a vision for the people - no, for the galaxy - and he put his heart and soul into bringing that vision to the hearts of everyone in the Macross 7 fleet, and beyond. Even to the Protodeviln."  
She was silent. "I...think I realized that at the very end," she said. "But that was so long ago..."  
"He found love in his music, and he put everything he had into it…but along the way he forgot why he was doing it. After the war...he lost something."  
"I don't understand. What did he lose, Ray?"  
"I wish I could explain it. I'm not Basara…the best way I can put it is that he's lost his first love, but believes he can bring that love back. If he tries hard enough."  
"But he lost it before! And he went searching, and he found it again!" She felt her fists clench against her thighs. "Why can't he do that? He can go look, can't he? Or he could ask us…right?" Her shoulders slumped. "I…I'd do anything…to…"  
"Basara's grown up, Mylene. Just as you have. He's too old to go running after it anymore."  
"I know," she said softly. "It's just easier...to pretend...to be the little girl he remembers me as. I was so comfortable in that role, and then I had to go grow up. Life isn't fair sometimes."  
Ray put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I know you had that dream, Mylene, but the fact that you're looking into something new is an indication that you're moving on. You've grown up, as you said. You've left your legacy, just as Basara has left his, and I just hope Basara has the sense to see it."  
"Can't you talk to him? He listens to you."  
Ray shook his head. "Sometimes. But I hardly know him anymore. Now, he hears, but he doesn't listen. He just doesn't argue back."  
She smiled a little. "I suppose."  
"If the university is the path you want to follow, Mylene, I'm behind you all the way. All I hope is that your new dream will come true just as happily as your old one did."  
She gave him a watery smile. "I hope you're right."  
"Oh, and Mylene?"  
There was something in his voice that made her frown at him, and he was looking at her with an expression in his eyes that made her cringe, like when she was in trouble with her father. "Ray?"  
"Just make sure that you're doing this for yourself. Don't do it because you want to run away."  
"That's ridiculous! What would I be running away from?"  
"I think you know," Ray said.  
She didn't say anything as he picked up his keyboard case and departed, leaving her sitting alone on the floor hugging her bass, staring at the wall. _I think you know._  
Was she simply running away from Basara, the Basara she didn't know anymore? They'd both had dreams, like Ray said, but she hadn't been sure if he was right. If the old one had even come true yet. And if it hadn't, how could she move on to a new one?  
Now, looking at the piles of acceptance letters on her desk, she still wasn't sure. Most every university she had submitted an application for had sent back an acceptance, that they would be "delighted" for her to attend the university. It wasn't a form letter. It was a letter for her alone, Mylene Flare Jenius, daughter of Captain Maximillian Jenius and Mayor Milia Jenius, bassist of band Fire Bomber, former member of Sound Force. If it was a legend she wanted, she had certainly earned the right to carve her name next to the names of her parents in the grand scheme of legends.  
What had Lynn Minmay seen in her music? What made her go on? What happened to her after she decided that the dream was over?  
One more recording, and then it was over. She supposed it was sort of an absurdly fitting ending, that the recording that they had been working on the other day before Basara had gone home was the last recording needed for the album. The Best of Fire Bomber, Ray wanted to title it, though if she had had a say in things, she would have entitled it The Last Album. Or maybe, The Legacy.  
Again, Ray knew. She knew that this would be their last album, and she could see the sadness in his eyes whenever they practiced, after that conversation in the empty room. He knew she was leaving them, and he knew that Basara had already gone. She hoped he could find a new dream.  
She hadn't told Veffidas, but she didn't think the drummer would be surprised when she announced it. Veffidas was accepting, silent and waiting. She had no doubt that she would be able to continue quite well on her own.  
She didn't want to tell Basara.  
Even thinking about telling him brought a deep wrenching hollowness to her stomach that she didn't understand. She fought it. It was good that she was getting away from him at last. She wasn't running away, she was just doing what she should have done long ago and moved on. His influence over the past few years couldn't be counted as positive at all, and she was getting ideas into her head. That was all. She wouldn't really miss anything about him. Well, she'd miss the arguments, she supposed, and she would miss the way his hair always stood straight up, especially in the mornings when she would make fun of him, and she would miss the weird way he always tuned his guitar, and the quiet passion in his voice when he sang one of his songs, and the way their voices blended so well and then the way he would smile at her sometimes after a successful recording or concert and she would smile back.  
Hell, what was she talking about? She would miss him terribly.  
His smile lit up her world in a way that Gamlin's never did. She would tell herself otherwise, time and again when she and Gamlin would go out on dates and he would smile at her in that cute, shy way of his, and she would feel that little glow deep in her heart. But Basara's smile was powerful, infectious, full of hidden meaning and the same passion that he sang with.  
Everything about him had been passionate, and that was what she missed most of all.  
She had no delusions about what would happen if she quit. When she quit. Basara would refuse to talk to her. He would be furious. Then he would be despondent. Then he would shrug his shoulders and say, to hell with it, we'll just find another bassist. Mylene was never that good anyway.  
And then he would forget about her.  
It hurt inside, to know that he was the kind of person who was capable of something like that even through all they'd shared together. As if their music and all its power had meant nothing to him. It hurt to even think about it, and she pushed the pile of letters away, feeling the tears rise in her eyes again. Angry, she scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. She would not cry. She was eighteen years old and she had never cried over a man, and she was not about to start now.  
_Don't do it because you want to run away._  
_I really really like you, Gamlin-san...but I like Basara just as much. I'm sorry..._  
She fumbled in her pocket for a tissue and her fingers met something crumpled. The song. She had almost forgotten about it.  
Bringing it out, she looked at it in the light of the desk lamp. It looked the same as it had under the moonlight, wrinkled, messy.  
Everything was a mess these days, even the music that the band made together. A cycle of entropy.  
Her guitar was in the corner, where she had left it after a half-hearted practice session the other afternoon. She really didn't have the energy to practice anymore. Every strum of the guitar, every plucking of a string reminded her of what, of who she was about to lose. She picked it up, feeling the familiar, worn wood under her fingers. She had debated getting a new one, but with being about to leave and go off to college, it was a moot point now. She wasn't nearly as good on the guitar as Basara was, obviously, but he had suffered to teach her the basics and she had picked up everything else on her own.  
She ran her fingers over the strings, gaining a bit of peace from the soothing notes that followed her fingers in a ripple. Struck the first few chords.

_Mimi o sumaseba kasuka ni kikoeru darou  
Hora ano koe  
Kotoba nan ka ja tsutae rarenai nani ka  
Itsumo kanjiru are wa tenshi no koe_

It really was a beautiful song. She would miss the singing, she knew. She loved to sing.

_Melody wa kieru yami ni shimi komu you ni  
Echo nokoshite  
Shizuka ni oriteku deep blue no aurora ni  
Ore mo utau ze_

Tomorrow. Tomorrow they would give the recording another try again, because it was Monday and Basara was feeling better. She had stopped by Ray's apartment afterwards and they had gone over the song order for the album, fitting in tracks just they way they liked it, because they knew Basara wouldn't care. Neither of them spoke of the fact that this would be the last time.

_Shinjite ita mono ga aru  
Baka da to iwareta keredo  
Kawara nakatta  
Ano hi no yume_

She wondered what had possessed her to put those words in there…about dreams and believing and music. She supposed that going to the university was a good dream in itself, but it hardly deserved a song. In her opinion. She wondered if she should talk to Ray again. Her parents were proud of her. It was one thing they agreed on now, that their daughter had made a good choice to attend college. She was growing up, and it was time to put childish things behind, her mother said. No matter to the fact that she and the rest of Sound Force had saved Macross 7; she was still a child in their eyes. A child who needed guidance.  
She would always be a child to everyone except for Gamlin and perhaps Ray.  
Even to Basara…  
The next few chords sounded angry and she forced her fingers to calm. She strummed for a moment, trying to think of the right words to put to the melody that she knew was right.

_Angel voice mitsuketa no sa  
Chiheisen no mukou ni  
Kirari hikatta  
Omae no sugata wa yume janakatta_

She didn't know what Basara was to her anymore, but she knew it wasn't right, to leave him. To leave him like this…there was something missing.  
_Your voice…that's what this song is about. It's not your song, Basara. It's my song. Your voice is the angel voice._

_Nagare nagarete yukou  
Itsuka mata aou ze_

_I'll finish the song for you, Basara._

The guitar was a living thing in her hands, moving out of her will now and writing the melodies into the air.

_My last gift to you…a song. I think you'll like this one._

_Hitomi tojireba  
Itsumo kokoro no naka ni hibiku  
Angel voice_


	6. Part V

_Macross 7 and all characters are property of Bandai, Big West, FiX, and Manga Entertainment.  
Please do not repost this fanfiction without permission.  
lordofmerentha@yahoo.com_

* * *

**V. [Basara]**

  


_It's been a long time since I rock and rolled…  
Ooh, let me get it back, let me get it back  
Let me get it back, baby, where I come from_

  
He was feeling much better today, and the smile on the director's face showed that it wasn't just his imagination. Not feeling as good as he could have been, certainly, and his mind kept wandering. But that was true for almost every recording session they'd had in the last few months. Nothing to worry about.  
Mylene, on the other hand, was something to worry about. She'd had that frowning, pinched look on her face for the entire time they had been in the studio, and Ray had been looking at her strangely. He'd felt Ray's eyes on him a few times, but when he had gotten the chance to sneak a glance at the keyboardist, the eyes were back to Mylene, staring at the back of her head or almost as if they were staring through her.  
Strange.  
Mylene played her bass with the same skill that he'd come to expect of her, but something was missing, today. Not only from him, but from her, and it showed. Perhaps the recording director didn't notice, but he did, and he was worried.

_Come on people kanjite hoshii  
Ima sugu wakaranakute ii kara  
Come on people inochi no kagiri_

So many memories, this song. From conception on the dirty floor of the apartment, to a clearing deep in the forest where an unconscious Protodeviln hung suspended, to Mylene's fierce eyes in the cockpit of her Valkyrie. When it had been the song that mattered.

_Omae wo mamoritsuzukeru  
My soul for you_

Her eyes…  
He felt, rather than saw her eyes turn towards him, seeking him, wanting. What did she want? He felt the burning, and for a second it was almost like they were back in the Valkyries, and she was singing her heart out for him. All for him, because she needed him. Sound energy…  
And for a second, the years slipped away and he closed his eyes and sang, like he hadn't sung in so long.

Come on people shinjite hoshii  
Itsumademo kawaranai ore wo  
Come on people taiyou no you ni

The music swelled around him, and then subsided, a floating tide of melody.

_Omae wo kagayakaseru  
My soul for you_

And that was it.  
It was done.  
"Good recording," the voice said by the door, and he simply dropped his guitar on the ground and stared blankly at the wall.  
"Are we done?"  
Again, he felt, more than saw, her look at him and then at Ray, and looked up as the keyboardist nodded to some invisible signal.  
"Not quite."  
He blinked, scratching his head. "Whaddya mean, not quite? I thought _My Soul for You_ was the last song on the album."  
"I-" Mylene said, from the corner. He turned an inquisitive eye on her, and she looked away.  
"Mylene?"  
The director looked agitated. "Ray…may I have a word with you?"  
Ray glanced at him, then at Mylene, then back, and then nodded fractionally. "I'll be back. You two, keep out of trouble."  
For once, Mylene didn't say anything back. He stared at her for a moment, noting absently that Veffidas had vanished out the door was well. She remained standing until the drummer's footsteps had faded down the hall, and then sat down with a little sigh on the platform.  
"Mylene?"  
"Ne, Basara." Her voice was subdued. He had never seen her look so lost, so young. Skirting the bass that was parked on the floor, he sat down next to her.  
"What is it?"  
"Remember…remember that time when you left City 7, and Gamlin and I followed you?"  
Why was she bringing this up now? "Yeah. What about it?" He attempted a short laugh. "I suppose you could say I was young and foolish then. Weren't we all."  
"I sang to that creature…and it listened to me." Like he hadn't spoken at all. "I think about that sometimes. I think that was what really convinced me about Sound Force, you know? Before…before it had been wonderful, but I still really didn't understand. I think that…I think that made me grow up. Just a little."  
"You still haven't grown up," he said, trying to make a joke. The atmosphere was too serious for what he was used to. Where were the arguments? Where were the accusations that he had grown used to defending himself against, the raised eyebrow and the angry eyes, demanding he do this and that?  
She didn't say anything in return.  
"I'm sorry," he said. "It was a bad joke."  
Mylene shook her head. "No…I think you're right." She looked at him, and he was surprised to see there were tears in her eyes. "Basara, I…"  
"I got the clearance for it, Mylene."  
At the sound of Ray's voice she turned away and picked up the bass, standing. "Good. Thank you."  
He gave her a warm smile, but there was something in it that was…  
"Anything for a friend."  
"Oi!" He waved his arms. "What's going on?"  
"We're singing one more song," Ray said, picking up his keyboard. Veffidas came in through the door, drumsticks clicking. "Mylene wanted it to be on the album."  
He raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"  
She shrugged, giving him a watery smile. "I thought it would be nice. You know, kind of a memorial."  
Memorial?  
He was across the stage in two steps, grabbing her arm. "There's something you're not telling me," he said fiercely, "and I don't like it."  
One tear rolled down her cheek. "Some things," she said softly, "you don't like, but they happen. And you have to accept that."  
"What?"  
"Play," she said, pushing him towards his microphone. "Just…play."

_Nigatsu no kaze wa mou  
Haru ga kanata  
Kiete yuku wa...  
Marude kimi no kokoro sarau you ni_

_Just like your heart was carried away from me._  
His fingers were on the strings but his heart wasn't in it, looking at her and watching her sing with her eyes closed and the tears on her cheeks. He could almost see the sound energy glow around her, hear her voice coming through the prison walls to touch his heart…if he remembered far back enough…far enough…

_Sono koe wo omoidasu no  
Hoshizora ni hibiki dasu  
Yasashii me wa sora wo utsushi  
Ai wo egaita..._

He saw her laughing in his memory, Guvava on her shoulder. _Basara, why do you write love songs?_

_Doko e kieru no?  
Kimi ni nagareru toki ni wa  
Atashi no sasayaku koe ga todoku no  
Oh kaze yo dou ka kimi ni todoke_

_I write love songs….because…I…_ _Omoidashite yo  
Futari yume wo mita toki o  
Kokoro ni umareta koe o kuchizusame  
Oh kaze yo dou ga kimi ni todoke_

The director looked smug. "Excellent recording. That's the best you've ever played it!"  
"Thanks," said Mylene without much emotion, still standing in front of the microphone. "Basara…"  
"What?"  
Before she could respond, Ray was standing in between them. "Basara…Mylene…"  
"This is it, Ray," she whispered. "I…Thank you."  
The nagging feeling at the back of his mind grew stronger, and he grabbed her arm. "Wait a minute. What are you talking about? What- you've been acting weird. What's going on!"  
She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand, and faced him squarely, green eyes large and serious.  
"Basara…I'm quitting Fire Bomber."

  
No.  
It wasn't true. She'd be there at practice tomorrow, tuning her bass and making some snide remark about his music ability, and he'd snap back. It had always been like that. She'd threatened to quit more than once, but she'd always come back. During the war…during the battles…  
_Mylene…your song. I felt it in my heart._  
She had the anima spiritia too. It wasn't just him…she had the potential, and he was willing to bet anything that if the war had continued past where it had ended, she'd have developed the same spiritia levels that he had. Perhaps not as strong, but enough to be classified anima spiritia, because she'd proven herself time and time again.  
She'd saved him, and all he'd done was put himself in danger again and again. She must have gotten tired of pulling him out of trouble, yet she'd done it, despite her small abilities.  
Why was that?  
The far wall was bare without the promo poster and he sat alone in the dark, watching the stars move across the sky and the breeze curl in through the window. It was too peaceful a night. Too peaceful for what had happened this afternoon.  
Mylene was leaving.  
"I want to go to university", she said. "I've been accepted, and I think it's what I want to do now."  
"But you can't leave Fire Bomber!"  
Her eyes were sad. "Basara…Fire Bomber is dead. I'm sorry."  
He slumped down on the bed. Ridiculous. Fire Bomber wasn't dead. They were all still there, the four of them who had started so long ago. If he wasn't totally honest with himself, he could make up all sorts of reasons. They had so much potential. They had a huge fan base. They had saved the galaxy, for heaven's sake. They had made the stars ring with music.  
"Mylene, you're insane."  
"It's not a joke this time, Basara." Over her shoulder, Ray nodded solemnly, placing one hand on her shoulder. "I'm really leaving. I'll be taking a shuttle over to the Einstein next week to the university…"  
"Dammit, Mylene!"  
"I'm really sorry, Basara. It's…not like I'm leaving forever…I'll come visit…"  
"You could have told me! Why the hell didn't you tell me?"  
The anger that flared in her eyes surprised him. "Why should I have? You never tell ME anything."  
He shouldn't have stormed out of the room. He should have stayed, reasoned with her, tried to get her to change her mind, even though trying to change her mind was like trying to change the mind of a rock. But still…he could have tried. He didn't have to be so childish.  
It wasn't like she was leaving forever, like she'd said. She'd still be in the fleet, a close visit on the Milky Road. Her argument made sense. But something inside of him had snapped, like a guitar string.  
A broken guitar.

_Doko e kieru no?  
Kimi ni nagareru toki ni wa  
Atashi no sasayaku koe ga todoku no  
Oh kaze yo dou ka kimi ni todoke_

"Mylene," he whispered, "Mylene. You could have told me sooner…"  
"She didn't want to."  
He scrambled to his feet, embarrassed that anyone should have seen him like that, but it was only Ray, so it was all right.  
"You!"  
"Basara."  
"You could have told me! Why didn't you tell me!"  
"I respected her privacy," Ray said calmly from the doorway. "As I respect yours. You should know that."  
He clenched a fist, but there was no emotion in the action, just a great emptiness. "Dammit."  
"She left something with me for you. She wanted you to have it."  
A faint surprise, but he pushed it down. "I don't want anything of hers."  
"She said you'd say that. She told me to say that it's actually yours."  
He blinked. What was that?  
"You coming down to get it, or should I just leave it here?"  
"Leave it," he said, his voice curt. "Get out of my room."  
The door closed softly, and he was left sitting on the floor, watching the clouds out of the window and wondering when exactly his life had become such a mess.  
_Sivil…you showed me the galaxy, and now I can't even remember.  
Mylene…I…_  
He climbed slowly down the ladder, feeling very tired all of a sudden. For a moment, he stood staring around the room, squinting in the dark, thinking that Ray had forgotten to leave Mylene's…gift…or maybe he had just been too disgusted with Basara's behavior and had decided not to give it to him after all.  
But there it was, on the floor by the door…a piece of paper? He picked it up. It was folded, but he could feel the lumps and crevices that meant it had been crumpled. A hand had tried to smooth it out, but the wrinkles remained. Mylene's hand? He held onto the paper for a minute with more strength than he needed, as if he could touch her by doing so.  
Mylene.  
He couldn't see anything in the dark, so he fumbled for the light switch. There were two lights controlled by the switch, but one of them had gone out last week and he didn't care enough to replace it. The light was dim, but enough to read by and he unfolded the paper, wondering. If it was a farewell note, he was going to scream. It would be just like her.  
It was a sheet of music, with chords and words. He recognized his own scrawled handwriting and her neat, bubbly kanji.  
This…this was his song. He hadn't been able to find it, because she had taken it, that night when she had come into see him. The music in his dream hadn't been a dream. She'd sung for him.  
She was always singing for him.  
There was a note in the corner, in her writing. Two short lines.  
_I finished this for you because I knew you wouldn't. Play it sometime._  
"You idiot," he whispered, clutching the paper to his chest, staring fiercely into the dark corners that the weak light couldn't reach. "I never asked you…I never asked you to…"  
His guitar was under the bed where he had left it, and he shifted it into his lap with trembling hands, the once-crumpled paper on the music stand, and he struck the first chord.

_Mimi o sumaseba kasuka ni kikoeru darou  
Hora ano koe  
Kotoba nan ka ja tsutaerarenai nanika  
Itsumo kanjiru are wa tenshi no koe_

He couldn't forgive her for keeping this secret from him. True, she hadn't accused him falsely…he'd always kept secrets from her before, but she was a kid, and there were just things that kids shouldn't know about.  
Forget the fact that she wasn't a child anymore…he just didn't want to hurt her, that was all. For some reason she always ended up getting mixed up with his plans, but he had tried to protect her.

_Melody wa kieru yami ni shimi komu you ni  
Echo nokoshite  
Shizuka ni oriteku deep blue no aurora ni  
Ore mo utau ze_

Shinjite ita mono ga aru  
Baka da to iwareta keredo  
Kawara nakatta  
Ano hi no yume

She'd done a beautiful job with this song. There was something there that he hadn't felt in a long time, that feeling that soared over him as he sang, and he closed his eyes. If he imagined hard enough, he could hear her singing along with him, their voices combining as the Song Energy flared from their Valkyries like a storm.  
Where would he be able to find another singing partner like her?

_Angel voice mitsuketa no sa  
Chiheisen no mukou ni  
Kirari hikatta  
Omae no sugata wa yume janakatta_

Nagare nagarete yukou  
Itsuka mata aou ze  
Hitomi tojireba  
Itsumo kokoro no naka ni hibiku  
Angel voice

She was always singing for him. How many times had he sung for her?  
Far fewer than he would have liked. She'd saved him from greater peril than he had ever saved her. It had been Mylene…always Mylene.  
Slowly, he stood, dropping the guitar, and staring at the sheet of music on the stand.  
_I finished this for you because I knew you wouldn't._  
She knew him too well. And he didn't know her at all.  
When he was sad he used to sit in the window and play the guitar, but somehow that didn't seem right now. Because she was leaving, and there just wasn't any point in playing anymore if she wasn't there.  
There was something she'd told him about a diamond ring, once, when he'd asked about it in all seriousness. He'd joked about it once, saying that she should give it to Gamlin, wondering who the hell was crazy enough to give a kid a diamond ring in the first place. She'd ignored him, but the subject had come up again about a year ago for some reason. He couldn't remember why.  
"Gamlin gave it to me. He wanted me to marry him."  
He had burst out laughing at the time. Mylene? Married to Gamlin?  
"I'm serious! Basara!"  
"Little dreamer," he'd teased, and strolled out of the room, collapsing against the wall outside the door. He should have been happy for them. He should have congratulated her seriously. Gamlin would make a fine husband. He should be proud of them.  
But he simply felt disgruntled and faintly disturbed. And he didn't know why.  
"Basara…"  
"What?" He'd grumbled, not bothering to look over at the head which appeared out of the doorway.  
"Basara, I'm not going to marry him. I turned him down. Don't be upset."  
"I'm not upset," he'd returned, hiding his surprise. "Don't be stupid."  
"I'm not stupid!"  
"Keep thinking that. Why'd you turn down a stud like Gamlin?"  
She had been silent for a long while, and when he finally did look down at her, the look in her eyes took him by surprise.  
"I'm…not sure who I want. But I don't think it's Gamlin."  
"Oh?" Arching one eyebrow. "Who might it be, then?"  
She'd blushed. "I can't tell you."  
He hadn't been able to sleep that night, running the conversation over and over in his head, wondering what he could have said to make things turn out differently. Didn't know why he did so. It was only a conversation, right? It was like a conversation with a kid sister. Nothing important. Because at the time, even at seventeen, she had been a kid sister. He couldn't imagine thinking of her any other way because they'd played the parts for too long. But he realized now, thinking back, that he had been hoping that she would say that it was him. That she would look up at him with the same starry-eyed look he'd seen her look at Gamlin with, and say in her endearing voice, _It's you, Basara. It's you._  
But she wouldn't. It was an empty dream, the loneliness, and the jealousy, and the search for meaning, because there wasn't any, now that she was gone.   
He'd ingrained the image of her in his mind as the bratty fourteen year old who was just beginning to understand how the world worked, and hadn't even realized that she hadn't been that for a while. It had taken a nudge from Ray to make him see it. Ray was like that, solemn, understated, pushing him in the right direction. He didn't deserve Ray. What was it that Ray had said back then?  
_Mylene isn't a girl anymore, Basara. She's a woman. And it's time you accepted that._  
_I've accepted it!_ he'd shot back, stung. Being lectured by Ray wasn't anything he really enjoyed, even though usually Ray was right.  
And Ray had simply looked at him and said, _No you haven't._  
The next day he'd watched Mylene as she entered the studio, as she cheerfully greeted them and started tuning her bass, and suddenly he'd realized that he hadn't accepted it. Mylene had been stuck in a time-warp in his mind where she was eternally fourteen, someone who needed his guidance and protection, a little nuisance most of the time and a little sister some of the time.  
But she wasn't that anymore.  
_Don't stare at me, Basara_, she'd said, and he'd quickly turned away, pretending to twist the D tuning peg on his guitar.  
He'd moped for the rest of the day after she'd gone home from practice, and Ray had cornered him again as he sat in his window, moodily strumming _My Soul For You._  
"Basara?"  
"Leave me alone."  
"I was just concerned," the deep voice murmured soothingly behind him. "But I'll leave."  
"Ray?" he said. "Why do things have to be this way? So complicated?"  
There was a pause, and then Ray said, "Women are always complicated."  
Ray had always been like that. Trust him to know what he was talking about, even without bringing it up. "Sivil wasn't," he said.  
"Mylene isn't Sivil. You know that as well as I do."  
"I understood Sivil."  
"Sivil was a fire in your soul," Ray responded. "You loved her because of what she represented – because she wasn't human and not limited to the human scope of thought. You can't be like that with Mylene. You can't expect her to be what Sivil was. Mylene is human. And so are you."  
"Sometimes I wish I wasn't," he muttered, and Ray didn't say anything, just left him alone with his guitar.  
It had taken him till now to see that there was no one else. No one who understood him like she did, no one who felt the music wholeheartedly and had seen the vision, had seen the true power of music. Ray was right. They sang well together, and it wasn't a fluke. Mylene wasn't Sivil, but she didn't have to be.  
She was human. But so was he. In his grand quest for something more, he'd somehow forgotten that part of himself. And that was all she was trying to do, to bring him back.  
She was the angel voice. 


	7. Part VI

_Macross 7 and all characters are property of Bandai, Big West, FiX, and Manga Entertainment.  
Please do not repost this fanfiction without permission.  
lordofmerentha@yahoo.com_

* * *

**VI. [Mylene]**

  


_Do you believe in rock and roll?  
Can music save your mortal soul?_

  
The bass fit carefully into the case, the velvet cloth covering it, and then the top coming down over the velvet. It was the hard shell case, not the soft one she used to lug it around in. Because she wouldn't be using it anymore.  
"I'm proud of you, Mylene," her mother jabbered over the viewscreen in the main room. Her mother was tireless, a bundle of energy that just kept going and going and never stopped. She'd been ecstatic when Mylene had called three weeks ago before to tell her that she'd be staying in the fleet for school, to the university aboard the Einstein, but then there was little that Milia wasn't ecstatic about nowadays, ever since her sister Miranda had had her baby. She'd sent word to her parents by fold transmission two weeks ago, and since then both Max and Milia had been in extremely good moods. She suspected that it had something to do with the fact that her sister's new baby was a boy.  
She could have gone anywhere she wanted, really. The new university on Varauta, just starting out, had tried its hardest to snag her. She could have gone to Mars, to Eden…even back to Earth.  
But in the end, she found she couldn't bring herself to leave the fleet she had learned to call home.  
She smoothed her fingers over the velvet one final time, then slowly closed the lid over the bass, her baby, hearing it click shut with a final snap. Her mother was still babbling away behind her and she fought back the tears, blinking fiercely.  
"You know," Milia said in that superior tone that she had long learned meant the beginning of one of her mother's long speeches, "I'm quite glad you're putting that bass away. I do wish you would sell it, especially since it would go for a high price, being the instrument you'd played at lives and all, but I suppose this is good enough. You're a student now, and it'll be good for you to put all that behind you. I'm so glad you finally realized that."  
She resisted the urge to sigh, turning back around to face the viewscreen. "I would never sell this."  
"All the same, I wish you would give it to me to-"  
"Ray's keeping it," she said firmly. "I promised him I'd let him keep it." He'd asked her about a week ago what she'd planned to do with her instrument, and she had stared at him. She had no clue. The bass had become a part of her, like an extra limb, and she hadn't even considered it. She knew she couldn't take it with her – it would hurt too much. But she couldn't get rid of it either.  
So she gave it to Ray. She didn't know why, exactly.  
Her mother's mouth set in a disapproving line. "I don't see what he wants with it."  
"For old times' sake."  
"Really, Mylene, I-"  
The incoming call light beeped, and she almost screamed with relief. "Mom, I've got a call. Gotta go."  
"Mylene, you-!"  
She flipped the switch, cutting off her mother in mid-sentence, and turned to look at the call box, her heart pounding a little faster just in case it happened to be Basara, even though he never called her other than to tell her that she had forgotten something or that for once, she was the one who was late. Basara. Right. She wasn't going to think about him.  
But it wasn't Basara anyway, of course. It was her father. With a sigh, though a smaller sigh than she had used for her mother, she accepted the transmission.  
Max's kindly face filled the screen, and for some reason the sight of him was almost too much to bear. He frowned at her for a second.   
"Mylene, are you all right?"  
She took a deep breath, gulping, and nodded. "It's just…a lot to think about…I guess."  
His face cleared. "Your mother called, didn't she?"  
"How'd you guess?"  
"Just a hunch," he responded, a small smile playing about his lips. Her parents had been extremely weird since the end of the Protodeviln War, and just when she thought they were getting back together, they would have another argument and call it off. And then things would cool off and get better for a while, and then the situation would explode again. She'd almost given up trying to ever guess their thought-processes, and had long ago given up any kind of plan to get them back together like she wanted them. She'd tried during the war, but it had been years before she realized that it wasn't anything she could do. It was the two of them that were the problem.  
The legends, growing old and growing apart. She loved her parents, but she didn't want to grow up to be like them.  
The news about Miranda's baby had apparently driven them back together, and she'd even seen snatches of "news" on the Galaxy Sport and other tabloids, hinting at a reunion. She'd believe it when she saw it. She didn't need tabloids to tell her what was going on with her family…though it hadn't stopped her four years ago from buying it to keep tabs on Basara.  
Not thinking about him. Not.  
"Mylene? You're spacing."  
"Huh? Oh. Uh…sorry…"  
Her father gave her another small smile. "You know, Mylene…we don't talk much anymore, but I am still your father, you know. The same dad you grew up with. If you ever need to talk about anything…"  
Her parents always said that, and once or twice she'd actually considered laying out her feelings on the table about the band and Gamlin and Basara. But Milia was scatterbrained and flying from one project to the next, and besides, Milia wanted her with Gamlin. Max, her dependable, loyal father, would probably actually put aside all his duties for the day just to hear about her problems. That was something she didn't want. Though actually that was something she didn't know his point of view on.  
"Actually," she hedged, feeling rather shy. "I do have a question."  
"Ask away," he said, reaching for his coffee mug. "What do you want to know?"  
"Papa…what do you think of Gamlin?"  
He blinked. "What?"  
"Gamlin. You know, the one I've been dating on and off for four years. The one Mama wants me to marry. The one that everyone thinks I'm engaged to. What do you think?"  
She watched him ponder this for a moment. "Does that matter?" he responded.  
"Papa?"  
"The real question, I think you mean, is what do you think?"  
"I didn't ask you that to get an answer back, dad," she said, annoyed.  
"I know. But in matters like these, it really doesn't matter what I think. Mylene, you're a woman. You're eighteen years old, you're going to start a new life away from home, and like it or not, you're still a galactic hero. I believe you're old enough to decide what you want. It's your future, not your fans', not mine, not your mother's." He paused, frowned. "Definitely not your mother's. And don't let her tell you otherwise, either. She has a tendency to be a bit bossy."  
"I know," she said heavily. "I just-"  
"Gamlin or Basara, that's not my decision to make. Only you can make that choice."  
She smiled wanly at him. "Thanks, Papa. I suppose."  
He smiled back a real smile at her, and she felt a little better. "That's my little girl. You get some rest now. I want you to be awake tomorrow for the ride over."  
"I love you Papa," she said.  
"I love you too." The screen went blank.  
She padded over to her dresser drawer, stuffed more clothes into the half-full suitcase by the bed. Tomorrow was only orientation, and she'd still be keeping this house in the City in case she ever wanted to come home for vacations, so packing wasn't a big deal. But she was packing, because packing helped take her mind off certain…things. And people.  
She was halfway between the screen and the dresser before she realized that while she'd mentioned Gamlin to her father, she had said nothing about Basara. But he'd mentioned Basara and Gamlin in the same sentence. Which meant that somehow, he'd figured it out, was giving her a choice when she wasn't even sure that there was one.  
"Am I THAT transparent?" she moaned to Guvava, who simply squeaked and rolled over on her bed. She clapped a hand to her forehead and groaned. "Mou!"  
The incoming call button chimed. She almost didn't answer, but figured whoever it was would be prime yelling material for her pent-up frustration. Especially if it was her mother.  
The remote was on the floor and she kicked it into place with one toe, pointing it at the screen and stomping on the "on" button. "Whoever you are," she snapped, "you better have something really good to say, because I…oh."  
It was him.  
"Do you really hate me that much?" Basara said from the screen. "I can go."  
"Sorry," she said, trying to hear him over the thundering heartbeat in her ears. "I thought you were my mother…" Her hands were sweating. She wiped them nervously on the sides of her pants, then realized she was in her pajamas, but it was too late to change. "You're calling me? You never call me." She heard the accusatory note in her voice and winced. "I….sorry, I didn't mean for it to come out that way…"  
_Great, Mylene. The guy calls to wish you good luck or something and you don't even know how to talk to him without starting an argument. Way to go._  
"Listen…Mylene…" He trailed off, looking extremely ill at ease, and her racing heart slowed a bit to see how miserable he sounded.  
"Are you all right?" she said softly, dropping the shirt she was folding and walking up to the projector to look him in the eye. "You look terrible."  
"I feel terrible. You know I've been sick."  
She was feeling bold and rather desperate, and she really didn't care how the words came out. "That's not what I mean," she said. "And you know it."  
He closed his eyes, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "Look. It's hard enough as it is already for me to try talking to you without starting some kind of fight, so…let me be, all right?"  
The wave of disappointment that washed over her was uncalled for, and she couldn't really figure out why it was there. Of course he hadn't caught onto what she had been implying in that last statement. How could she have expected him to? Feelings were ephemeral things, unique to only one person most of the time, giving with no return. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. "That's all my fault too, I guess. I'm sorry I'm such a nag."  
"Not your fault," he replied softly, with a hint of dry humor in his voice. "Most of the time I deserved it."  
She smiled a bit. "Well, that's almost over. After tomorrow, no more me around to nag you anymore. Enjoy your freedom."  
She saw his face twist a bit at that, felt something rise up in her heart, felt it drop again as she heard him say: "I was calling actually about this song that you uh…stole."  
She was about to retort that she hadn't stolen it, she had taken it and given it back, but she saw that he was uncomfortable. So instead she simply said, "What about it?"  
He'd clearly been expecting some sort of sharp remark and she saw him blink a few times before he went on, a little hesitantly. "Thanks. For…working on it."  
It was her turn to blink. "Uh…you're welcome?"  
"I was…" he was hesitating again, which was odd. She waited. "Well, I was wondering why you bothered."  
"Why I bothered?" she echoed. "What?"  
"To try and finish some song that I was going to throw away anyway."  
She frowned. "You were going to throw it away? Why? It's one of the best things you've ever written!"  
The screen was large enough that she could see every faint change of his expression, and she saw him wince, his eyes going cloudy. "I've lost my touch, haven't I, Mylene?"  
"Basara-"  
"Just say it." His shoulders slumped. "I've….I don't know what to do with myself anymore. I feel useless."  
Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and all of a sudden the fiery fourteen year old temper was there again like she remembered it still, when Basara had done something stupid or hadn't thought before he acted or was late to a live or had just plain hurt her without realizing it. She marched up to the viewscreen, ignoring the surprised look on his face, and shook one fist at him.  
"You listen to me, Nekki Basara," she hissed. "Don't ever tell me, or yourself, or anyone that you're useless. You understand that? You're NOT useless! And if you ever say that again, I'll…I'll never speak to you again!"  
"You're doing a good job of that right now," he shot back. He was getting angry now. She didn't care. Let him get angry. She knew how to deal with an angry Basara. She didn't know how to deal with the quiet, defeated man who had come calling tonight for sympathy. Because the Basara she knew didn't want sympathy and would never know what to do with it if he'd gotten it.  
"Maybe it's good I'm getting away!" she snarled. "I've had enough of your attitude. The world doesn't revolve around you, you know, and you're doing a damned good job of making everyone think that it does! It didn't four years ago and it doesn't now!"  
"So that's all I am to you, huh? A self-absorbed bastard who only cares about himself?"  
She shook her other fist at him, not bothering to hide the rage in her voice. "Don't throw my words back in my face!"  
"Oh, so what do you-"  
"Nekki Basara, you find out what you want before you come crawling to me or to anyone else for help. I'm not going to sit by and watch you feel sorry for yourself. You're better than that!" She cut him off as he tried to say something else. "I know you're better than that and I won't have you lying to yourself. Something happened to the Basara I used to know. You're not him!"  
"People change, Mylene," he snapped. "I've changed."  
"No, Basara," she said, letting her fists drop, too tired to hold them up anymore. "You haven't changed…you've disappeared. I don't know you anymore."  
"Maybe you never did."  
She knew he was expecting some snide reply, but she let the comment slide, instead raised her head to look him straight in the eyes, saw the golden eyes blink in surprise and then slide away. She sighed. "You're right. Maybe I never did. Maybe the last four years were a lie and maybe the man I fell in love with never existed."  
She watched him freeze, his eyes sliding back to hers. Blink. Once. Twice. There was a strange sort of feeling bubbling up from her heart, as she realized with a fuzzy sort of surprise that the words had come out of her mouth without her consciously thinking about it, that they were said and there was no unsaying them. And that Max had been right.  
And her mother was going to be furious that it wasn't Gamlin.  
"Mylene…"  
He was going to tell her that she was just a kid and she couldn't know what love was. That she'd never been in love, so how could she be talking? That was all right. It didn't matter if he didn't feel the same way back. She was leaving anyway.  
"It's all right," she said. "I understand."  
"Mylene, I don't-"  
"I told you it's all right," she said again patiently. "I just wanted you to know. Before I-"  
"I was going to say that I don't understand why you could love someone like me," he interrupted her. "But if you're going to not let me talk, maybe you could explain why you're leaving then."  
She hadn't planned for that kind of reaction. "Well," she said, shrugging. "There's not much for me here anymore."  
"But the band-"  
"Fire Bomber isn't the band I joined."  
"It's me, isn't it?" he said heavily.  
"It might be."  
His eyebrows drew together. "If you're running away, you're not doing a very good job."  
"I don't need you to tell me what I can and can't do!"  
"I'm not-!"  
"Forget it," she snapped, turning her back. "Just forget it."  
A second of silence. "I'm sorry, Mylene."  
"Forget it," she said again. "There's a time and place for sorry, and this is not it. I'm sorry too, if that counts. Maybe if we're both sorry enough, we can even pretend the last three years or so never happened. That would be nice, wouldn't it?" She didn't bother to hide her sarcasm.  
Another second of silence and a rustle of something, and she thought he was going to hang up on her. But there was the soft strumming of an acoustic guitar, and a voice.

_Mimi o sumaseba kasuka ni kikoeru darou  
Hora ano koe  
Kotoba nan ka ja tsutaerarenai nanika  
Itsumo kanjiru are wa tenshi no koe_

It was the song. The song she finished. She spun around in surprise, but his eyes were closed and he was obviously playing and singing from memory. He'd already memorized it.  
Despite her efforts, she felt her heart reaching out to him, like it had in the prison on Varauta three years ago. _Kimi ni todoke_.  
"I am sorry, you know," he said, still strumming. "I'm sorry I couldn't be better for you. I'm always letting people down now….letting Ray and Veffidas down, letting you down, letting me down."  
"The band isn't everything," she ventured, not sure where he was taking this conversation, not daring to think.  
"No, that wasn't the problem. It was everything…during the war. You all were my family. But I…somehow, that took backseat to other things after it ended."  
"Ray said you lost your dream."  
He opened his eyes, and she was struck again by how fierce and powerful they were. "Maybe he was right. You could do far better than to love me. What about Gamlin?"  
"I love Gamlin," she said. "I love him like a friend and like a brother, but that's all. Maybe he could have been more if I had stayed the little girl I was when we first met. But I'm not that anymore. He doesn't need the me that I've become."  
"You make yourself sound like some old lady. You're hardly that. Stop it, or you'll start sounding like your mother."  
She smiled wanly. "Sometimes I feel like her."  
He played for a while and she watched him, just content to stand there and watch him play. It had been a long time since he'd done that – sat there and played.  
"I miss you," she said.  
"I miss you," he replied. "Even though you haven't left yet. Even though you're not going far away. I still do. Fire Bomber isn't Fire Bomber without you."  
"That's all? Just the band?"  
His lips quirked in a smile. "No. Maybe not."  
"Then that's enough," she said. "As long as you remember that, you'll always have me."  
He strummed a few more bars, then looked at her. "Tell me what you think I should do."  
"How should I know?"  
"You're leaving," he said. "I'm stuck in a rut and I don't know what to do. And before you start, I'm not feeling sorry for myself. That's the way things are. I do feel useless, Mylene. And I hate it."  
She gazed at him for a moment more – the man who she had grown to love, the carefree soul burdened now by weights he couldn't even understand, and she knew.  
"Leave," she said.  
"What?"  
"Leave Macross 7 for a while. You feel useless here, don't you? What was that you said about Sivil? She showed you the galaxy, didn't she, Basara? Have you forgotten her already? There's more out there than Macross 7 and you know as well as I do that's what you used to live for. The new frontier."  
"I can't leave-"  
"That's not you talking. That's the Basara that the media has made up. The Basara I know would pack up and get off this ship in a heartbeat."  
He sighed. "I wish I could."  
"What's keeping you?"  
"Work. Responsibility. You…"  
"I'm telling you to go, aren't I? And I'm not going to be here much longer. There's something else, and it's not just work."  
He seemed to be considering her words, and then abruptly, he stopped playing, put down the guitar out of the range of the screen, and folded his hands in front of him. "All right, so tell me,. Mylene…what good is anima spiritia when there's no one around to understand it?"  
"I understand it. You understand it. My family…the fleet…don't they?"  
"I don't know." He stared at his fingers. "I lie awake a lot now, wondering. Wondering what happened to Lynn Minmay. Wondering if she burned out too. Wondering if she was as great a legend as she's made out to be."  
"I don't think she was," she said thoughtfully. She'd brought the same topic up with her father a few years back just after the war, and Max had simply smiled, saying, _Minmay was a legend, Mylene. And legends need to be larger than life. And maybe it's better that way, that Minmay the star became Minmay the legend, so she could inspire others to do the same._  
"You don't?"  
"Think about it, Basara. What is it about the media that you hate? They take the news and stretch it, don't they? If they've done it to us, they might have done it for Minmay. She wasn't some super omniscient musician, no matter how much she's depicted that way now in all the stories. I'm sure she had faults and weaknesses too. She was human, just like you."  
That seemed to strike a chord with him and some unidentifiable emotion crossed his face for a moment and then was gone. "Still, I-"  
And then she suddenly understood the source of all his frustrations, and she almost smiled. "Basara. You're yourself, and that's as good as you can be. Lynn Minmay didn't become a legend because she gave up after it was all over. She kept going, when those who had believed fell away. Because she believed they would come back. And even if they didn't…she still believed."  
"I used to be like that, you know."  
"Yes, and I liked the old Basara much better. What happened to singing your songs when you felt like singing them?"  
He gave a half-laugh. "I guess I grew up. Or maybe just grew older. I don't know if I'll ever grow up. I still believe in music. I just don't…don't want anything else that comes with it. No recordings. No shows. No nothing. I just want to play. And I can't do that anymore. I'm sick and tired of being compared to Lynn Minmay. Maybe that's why she left on the Megaroad."  
"So leave. Get away. Just go, Basara. Don't wait till you've lost the dream completely, because it's killing you now, and I can't stand to see you like this."  
He smiled. "What about you?"  
What about her? She would go to university. She'd get a degree in something, get out, get a job, make her mother proud of her, make her father happy, and leave her glory days behind. Was that what she wanted?  
"I'll be fine," she said with effort.  
"Don't lie. You're running away. I'm not the only one who's been living a lie, and you know that. Or didn't Ray tell you that too? He's good at that."  
She couldn't bear his eyes on her, and she turned her face away. "I just…"  
"Power to the dream," he said, and then sang it softly, a cappella, bringing involuntary tears to her eyes that she blinked away hard.

_Power to the dream  
Power to the music  
Atarashii yume ga hoshii no sa…_

"I need to…think," she said finally. "I need to get out. I can't stay here. My parents said it was time for me to move on, and I think they're right."  
"So why did Ray tell me he was keeping your bass?"  
She didn't answer.  
"It's late," he said at last, "and you have to leave early. I'll let you go." She heard him drawing back from the screen, and something in her brain screamed at her that no, it was too soon, that she couldn't part from him like this.  
"Basara-!"  
His eyes were startled, but she saw some relief in them too, relief that she didn't dare interpret one way or another. "The song…that I finished," she said in a breathless rush. "You never said what you wanted with it."  
"Oh…I…" he trailed off. She held her breath. "I was….hell, Mylene, you know I didn't call about that."  
"I know," she replied softly.  
His eyes locked on hers. "I'll let you go now," he said, a fierce, burning note in his voice she hadn't heard in it since the war. "But I'm not leaving. Not till you tell me what you're going to do."  
"I don't-"  
"Don't argue," Basara said. "It doesn't suit you." A smile. "I'll be waiting."  
And before she could say anything else, the screen went dark.  
She remained standing, staring at the black screen, feeling drained and giddy and frustrated and sad all at once, emotions rolled up in a ball lodged somewhere between her stomach and her pounding heart.  
"Power to the dream, huh?" she wondered out loud, and Guvava rolled over and gave a little burp. She let her legs go limp and fell backwards onto the bed next to him, watching the ceiling swim in and out of focus in the dimness. Served her right, that Basara had called her for advice and he'd ended up giving her some things to think about in return.  
So what the hell was she supposed to do now?  
She threw one arm over her eyes and sighed. Guvava's fur tickled her neck. She saw Basara's face in front of her closed eyelids. And then her father's and then her mother's. And then Gamlin and then Basara again.  
"Mattaku mou!" 


	8. Part VII

_Macross 7 and all characters are property of Bandai, Big West, FiX, and Manga Entertainment.  
Please do not repost this fanfiction without permission.  
lordofmerentha@yahoo.com_

* * *

**VII.**

  


_I need music and you  
I'll always love you baby  
Just you and rock and roll yeah_

  
On the brink between sleep and waking, he heard a twittering, cracked open his eyes to find that there was indeed a bird perched on his windowsill. He'd forgotten to close the window last night. The bird cocked its head, blinking at him with one dark eye, then fluttered its wings and landed on the edge of the flowerpot.  
The flower he'd plucked from the ruins left by Sivil inside Battle 7 had long died, but it had scattered some seeds before it did so, and now one of its children resided in the pot on his windowsill. Ray had kept the rest of its offspring, arranged in various choice spots inside his new apartment. He'd only been over there once. Who would have known that Ray would have a knack for flower arrangement? Or maybe that was Akiko's doing.  
There was something more important than the flower, though…something to do with Sivil and the war, and…the fragment of a conversation lingered in his mind like the remnants of a bad dream and he muzzily tried to remember what had been so important that he was awake at this hour of the morning. Judging from the light coming through the window, it was barely dawn.  
Mylene.  
She was leaving.  
He vaulted out of bed, stubbing his toe on the edge of his guitar case, and spent about half a minute hopping about in silent agony before the throbbing in his foot subsided. The clock by his bed read 0655, and he had forgotten to ask when her shuttle was leaving. He only knew that it left early.  
He should go back to bed, because nothing he did was going to make her change her mind. Even if he chased her down to the spaceport and begged, what would that accomplish?  
She was only going thirty minutes away by Milky Road, but that was the same as if she were going away forever, because there would never be a Fire Bomber again.  
_I'm not leaving. Not till you tell me what you're going to do._  
Not only did that make no sense, but who was he to make such demands from her? If she'd made up her mind to leave City 7, what right had he to take that from her? Who was he to accuse her of running away when he was only doing the same?  
It was ironic, really, he thought as he threw on an old t-shirt and some faded jeans and stuck his feet into his beat up tennis shoes. She might be running away by leaving the city, but that was the best kind of running away there was, because she was going to a better place, towards a brighter future. While he on the other hand was running away by staying here and doing absolutely nothing. Wasting away.  
The lines of an old song popped into his head, and for a moment, he couldn't remember exactly where he had heard it before he realized it was a Lynn Minmay song. It had been popular back on Earth when he was young, in the sudden Minmay song popularity boom that had happened when he was around eight or nine.

_Toki wa nagareru  
Ai wa nagareru  
Kuchihateru mae ni wa..._

_Time drifts away…_  
The bird on the flowerpot twittered once, a sharp, trill chirp, and then launched like a tiny projectile into the dawning sky, vanishing somewhere over the rooftops of the stirring city. He heard the whine of the electricity generators kick into motion, and the first patrols should be leaving to fly their shifts for the day.  
There were no messages on the machine. She hadn't called him back. Hadn't changed her mind. He didn't think she would, but he had had to try, because he hadn't wanted to admit that she was right.  
He had to catch her before she left.  
The sun was rising as he vaulted down the apartment steps, taking them four at a time with his acoustic guitar in one hand and some spare change in his pocket, and the red rays were a flaming halo around the crimson red sheen of the Fire Valkyrie's hull, parked in Gerwalk mode around the back of the crumbling apartment complex, crouching down as if she had been waiting for him.

  
"Please stow all your baggage in the overhead compartment or underneath the seat in front of you. If it doesn't fit, then we'll have to check it." The flight attendant's voice took on a threatening tone. "And don't think you can try to hide it either!"  
She sighed, kicking her bag under the seat in front of her, a seat occupied by an elderly gentleman twice its size who should really have been taking up two seats. The seat sagged dangerously and she wondered what the flight attendant would do if it actually split open at the seams.  
The window to her right looked directly out onto the viewer's platform, and she saw her mother and father standing there, tiny against the huge glass window overlooking the hangar. She wasn't entirely sure she liked this hangar. She wasn't entirely sure she liked this shuttle. She was a pilot, and riding in shuttles with civilians, tightly strapped into a small seat that gave her no protection whatsoever against the vacuum of space, wasn't her idea of safety. She'd even put Guvava back onto her shoulder for this trip, and he didn't seem to like the shuttle either, huddling under her hair and burying his nose in her neck.  
In fact, she'd suggested that she just fly over in her own Valkyrie, but her mother wouldn't allow it, citing something about if she was going off to school, she'd better do it right. Meaning no flying for a while. It was amazing how persuasive her mother could be. She supposed she could have asked her father for permission, but Sound Force was no longer an active military Valkyrie team, and Max wasn't fool enough to go against her mother in matters like this.  
Still, they were here. Together. At least there was that. They'd both kissed her and hugged her, something they hadn't done since she was fourteen, but she didn't mind. It was good to be a family again, even if just for this short while.  
He wasn't here.  
_I'm not leaving. Not till you tell me what you're going to do._  
What else could she do?  
She felt the old longing stir up in her heart a little at the sight of the blackness beyond the hangar doors, but she squashed it firmly, rolling her eyes a bit that she was being so childish still.  
_You're going to school, Mylene. And that's the end of it._  
Gamlin had gone with her to the terminal, but he had to leave for work. He'd dropped a polite kiss on her cheek and told her he'd come visit her soon. She'd grinned and told him she would hold him to that promise. She didn't doubt he'd find some time to make a trip to the Einstein sooner or later.  
She didn't tell him about Basara. She didn't have to. She sensed he already knew.  
Gamlin was like that.  
The intercom crackled. "Attention, passengers. The cabin doors are now closing. Please fasten your seatbelts and prepare for liftoff. Approximate travel time to the Einstein is thirty minutes, barring heavy traffic or accidents."  
She heard the heavy thump of the cabin door slamming shut, and felt her heart clench a bit. Shaking off the feeling, she looked out the window again. Her parents were still there, standing side by side. As she watched, the figure she thought was her father lifted his hand in a little wave. She waved back hesitantly, not sure if he could see her. Apparently he didn't, but her mother did, because she saw Milia raise her hand and point, and her father waved even more enthusiastically. It was the Zentradi vision, she supposed. Or maybe just maternal instinct.  
She was about to pull down the windowshade when she saw her mother turn around suddenly, and saw a few figures push their way forward to the window. Her heart leapt for a second.  
It was Ray and Veffidas and Akiko. Just the three of them. They waved at her too, but she didn't wave back again.  
He hadn't come.  
The hangar doors in front of them began to creak open, and the shuttle inched forward. She closed her eyes, turning away from the window with a sigh. She could call her parents when she got to the university.  
The little unbidden hope in her heart that Basara would come to say goodbye fluttered and died.

  
The Fire Valkyrie's controls were molten metal in his hands, and he took her into the air with ease, feeling the fluidity of the guitar-stick control as his fingers danced along the levers and she shuddered under his touch like a skittish horse. He hadn't flown her as often as he should have after the war had ended, and this fighter was almost entirely new, anyway. Gepernitch had effectively torn apart his old one.  
Not to say that there was any difference between the two. If it was possible, the new Fire Valkyrie handled even smoother than the first.  
"Easy, baby girl," he soothed, pulling back on the stick, and she responded, a grinding of living gears around him as she shifted from Gerwalk into fighter mode. The sun in the false City 7 sky was almost over the horizon now and he took the fighter in a tight circle over Akusho, around to the airlock that he and then Sound Force had been authorized clearance to use. It seemed like such a long time ago.  
It was a long time ago, to think about it.  
He didn't want to think about it.  
The airlock doors were opening in front of him and the Fire Valkyrie burst through them in a bright blaze, wheeled once, twice, and then he set her free, soaring through the space above the city, just under the shell which was lit in a brilliant parody of dawn.  
Mylene would probably be on the first shuttle out for the Einstein, and hopefully it hadn't left yet. Silently cursing himself for not being more prepared, he took the fighter down towards the stretch of Milky Road from the City to the science ship. It was still empty. He could feel the guitar itching to be played, and he clamped down on the itch. Not yet. It wasn't time yet.  
There was a bulky white object just emerging from one of the outer general use hangars, and he closed in, watching it on the scopes and from the cockpit as it sluggishly gained momentum, crawling forward like some big thick worm, resolving itself into large white civilian shuttle with MACROSS 7 UN SPACY painted in bright red letters on both sides.  
Things like that didn't belong in space. Space was for the adventurous, the daring, the beautiful Veritech Fighters and the brave men and women who flew them. Not some monstrosity like that shuttle, where fat civilians sat in their padded chairs and read their magazines and would never know what it took to make space a part of their lives and a part of their souls.  
Mylene was on that shuttle. She had to be.  
He touched the controls and the Fire Valkyrie swept down towards the slow-moving craft. He heard the gears grinding around him again, and the craft leapt like a gazelle, transforming into the familiar battroid configuration. There was that rush of adrenaline, and as he opened the channel to the shuttle, hoping they'd answer, he suddenly knew that whatever it was that had plagued him, robbed him of his spirit and his song there aboard the Macross 7 was no longer here in space. He felt it lifted from his shoulders like a great weight. Mylene was right, after all.  
For some reason, that didn't surprise him one bit.  
"This is Shuttle C-7396. Is there a problem? Over."  
"You're going to have to halt that shuttle," he said, trying not to smile as the face of the shuttle comm operator appeared on his screen and opened his mouth wide in surprise.  
"Nekki Basara-!"  
"You're going to have to stop that shuttle," he said again, and he couldn't hold back the itch any longer, sending the Valkyrie into a tight spin around the shuttle as his fingers launched into the opening chords of _Totsugeki Love Heart_. "I've got a bone to pick with one of your passengers."

  
"Miss Jenius? Miss Mylene Jenius?"  
She had been dozing and awoke with a start to the touch of fingers on her shoulder, shaking her a little bit. It was a female flight attendant, Zentradi by the looks of her, looking rather ill at ease.  
"Yes?" she said, trying not to sound like she'd fallen asleep. There was phlegm in her throat. She coughed inconspicuously.  
"You need to come to the cockpit immediately."  
"Is everyone all right?" she burst out, alarmed.   
"Yes…just come, please, you'll see when you get there."  
She unbuckled her seat belt, sliding out of her seat and following the flight attendant down the aisle, wondering what was going on. Had something happened to her family? But they had just been standing there at the window, waving. Maybe something had happened to Gamlin. He was flying patrol today. Or worse…what if…  
Guvava suddenly went very still. She blinked, then realized there was a half-familiar sound buzzing around her ears, and she pushed that train of thought away gladly, trying to identify the…was it music? She wasn't sure. It was very faint, almost not-there. She heard it over her own soft footfalls as they drew closer to the cockpit, and she suddenly realized what it was.  
It was _Totsugeki Love Heart_.  
Did the pilot like Fire Bomber? Was that what this was? Just a way to get her autograph?  
She was about to politely decline and make her way back to her seat when the flight attendant touched the switch to open the cockpit door, and the sound hit her full-blast. That was no radio. That was the real thing.  
The Fire Valkyrie outside the cockpit was also the real thing.

_Let's dance hoshitachi mo utau  
Isshun datte nagaku dekiru  
Tsubasa wo futtara rock with me!_

"What the hell?!" she exclaimed. Her hands were frozen on the sides of the doorway and her feet refused to move. The music throbbed, pulsing around her, and the swirl of light around the Valkyrie from the Sound Energy Convertor sent a nostalgic ache into her heart.  
"Didn't think I was going to let you leave without saying goodbye, did you?"  
"_Basara?_"

  
Her stunned face on the monitor was a welcome relief, and he slowed the Valkyrie, turning the music down. They stared at each other for a second. Man and woman. Guitarist and bassist. Valkyrie and UN shuttle.  
"Basara, if you don't get off this road, I'm going to be late for orientation. There's a schedule, you know?"  
He waved her aside impatiently. "Look, I'm not going to keep you long. I just wanted you to know I was leaving. That's all."  
"Lea-leaving?" she choked out, and for a minute he was concerned that he had interpreted her incorrectly, and that she was going to be even more upset at him than she already was. But she simply leaned forward, her face confused. "How are you leaving? You told me you weren't going to go. Not until I told you what I was going to do!"  
"Well," he said conversationally. "I thought about it and I realized that you had already told me what you were going to do. And that nothing I was going to say was going to change your mind."  
She hung her head. "I'm sorry, Basara. I'm not saying…I'm not coming back to the band. But…we all need some time off."  
"That's why I'm leaving."  
She raised her head again, her green eyes intense. "Because I won't change my mind?"  
"No. Because you've given your answer. And I realized that instead of trying to change you, I needed to be trying to change me instead."  
"That's a good reason," she said, with a shadow of a smile. "Where are you going?"  
"Who knows?" he said, and laughed, and she did smile then. "It's a big galaxy. Millions of things no one has ever seen, and I'm going to find them all."  
"I've missed your laugh," she said softly, and he saw she was going to cry. "I hope you find a million things. A million and one things, even."  
"Mylene," he said, and then touched his fingers to the guitar and began to sing.

_Mimi o sumaseba kasuka ni kikoeru darou  
Hora ano koe  
Kotoba nan ka ja tsutaerarenai nanika  
Itsumo kanjiru are wa tenshi no koe_

"Basara-"  
"Your song, right?" he said. "Yours and mine. I'm singing it just like you wanted."

_Shinjite ita mono ga aru  
Baka da to iwareta keredo  
Kawara nakatta  
Ano hi no yume_

He jerked the control stick up and the Fire Valkyrie rose, hovering above the Milky Road and its myriad of lights stretching boundlessly into the distant blackness of space. She was quiet, staring at him on the monitor still, and then he noticed the tear trickling silently down her cheek.  
"Don't cry, Mylene," he said. "I'll be back. When I find what I'm looking for."  
"I know," she whispered. "I hope you find it, whatever it is. And I'll still be waiting."

_Angel voice mitsuketa no sa  
Chiheisen no mukou ni  
Kirari hikatta  
Omae no sugata wa yume janakatta_

There was no longer the Milky Road, or the shuttle, or the City in the distance with its shell tinted the color of the rising sun. It was just him and her and the Valkyrie and the color of Sound Energy – anima spiritia – that flared around him. That was all that mattered.  
And someday, when they met again…  
It was once again, all for the music.

_Nagare nagarete yukou  
Itsuka mata aou ze  
__Hitomi tojireba  
Itsumo kokoro no naka ni hibiku  
Angel voice_   


**10 May 2003**


End file.
